[Pmwiki-users] New structure of Documentation?

[Neil Herber]

At 2004-12-30  10:41 AM -0700, Patrick R. Michaud is rumored to have said:
>Another aspect of the existing documentation structure is
>that it explicitly recognizes the various audiences that
>need support: new/naive authors, experienced authors, and
>site administrators.

I found (find??) it very difficult as a new user to find the information I 
wanted in the documentation. It was almost always there - I just could not 
find it. I started using search a lot and that led to another problem - 
search does not categorize the hits as "for authors" "for newbies" or "for 
administrators".

I would like to see a short explicit heading near the top of the 
documentation pages that describes the intended audience. For example:
Audience: Administrators
or
Intended for: New Authors
or
Best for: Experienced authors
or
Recommended for: The tired and frustrated ;->

If the pages were tagged this way, a search could be much more direct, 
since you could include the audience designator.

Another useful item would be a "related topics" or "see also" blurb at the 
bottom of the page. Many pages have them now and they do help.Despite the 
good intentions, I find the Wiki Trails construct to be useless when I am 
in desperation mode. It is really only suited to folks who read manuals in 
page order - and I suspect I am not the only person who doesn't belong to 
that class.


Neil

Neil Herber
Corporate info at http://www.eton.ca/
Eton Systems, 15 Pinepoint Drive, Nepean, ON, Canada K2H 6B1
Tel: (613) 829-4668