[ZDP] Volunteers

[Martijn Faassen]

Tom Deprez wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I presume everybody at the moment knows I want to volunteer, especially
> writing an introduction to Zope.

Great! (I knew). It's just I'm so glad you and others are so active in
the ZDP. As the guy who anarchistically sort-of started it, that's very
nice to see.

> At the moment, my knowledge is too limited
> for writing FAQ, besides I need this introduction. For myself and for
> introducing others into Zope.... I just looked over metadocs. All things go
> about FAQ, not about the introduction text / or text thingies we've already
> written (maybe I missed something?).  

No, this is true. When we started the ZDP we sort of decided we neede a
focus, and a FAQ seemed to be a good choice. I got a FAQ written and up
on the ZDP site in a short time. Then we got bogged down -- I'm a bit
daunted updating it, it's quite an intensive task to do and I'm getting
busier at work. The CoolFAQ would make it easier to do a collaborative
FAQ, and so the idea arrived to make a CoolFAQ system in Zope. We talked
a lot about the design and therefore there's the design doc.

We need a doc on 'CoolDoc' or 'CoolBook', a system in which we can
publish assorted documentation in an easy but structured and consistent
way (along with things as editing and such). Of course we can start easy
with some guidelines, instead of making a vast programming project out
of this too. :)

So, the ZDP has two main projects going right now (along with just
producing the docs itself):

* Long term development of the CoolFAQ tool

* Initial structuring of the other documentation. Then, link up with
CoolFAQ design? Development of CoolDoc system?

Hm, unrelated remark: Perhaps the 'Cool' things are codenames (standing
for collaborative which is the main focus), and when we get the stuff
done it'll be called 'Z', ZFAQ, ZBook or ZDoc. :)

> Second, can somebody write a small
> text on XML? I don't know much about it...

Perhaps www.xml.com has good info. There's also www.w3.org who have an
XML section (with links to many articles along with the formal spec).
Anyway, XML will probably not be a central part of the CoolFAQ system,
but will be used for interoperability.

> Has somebody good knowledge of style sheets? Maybe she/he can make one,
> which we will use for a consistency...

Actually Martijn Pieters has provided a stylesheet on the ZDP site (I
haven't studied it). The unfortunate thing about stylesheets like now is
crappy browser implementation (not standard compliant). Anyway, this
will help with layout consistency (Zope is great for that anyway in
other respects, see the stuff Martijn Pieters has done on the ZDP site
for examples; if you have management access). 

More important is the way the docs should be consistent reading, as well
as some indexing of what's there, so that people can easily find what
they like. This is what the ZDP should focus on.
 
> How can I submit the text into ZDP?

As I think I mailed you earlier, you can get a login on the ZDP site
from me (or quite a few others on this list by now). Just mail me (if
you want it urgently, during this weekend, and I don't read the list
then, you could try asking on the list, too, Martijn Pieters and Pavlos
for instance can supply you with access).

Of course this applies to others too. :)

Regards,

Martijn