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Author Topic: Tutorial page web/wiki  (Read 11082 times)

trev

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Re: Tutorial page web/wiki
« Reply #30 on: March 09, 2020, 09:47:39 am »
The Documentation page is far too long and not organized in a new user focus.  The links they need are certainly there but they are unlikely to find them.  Whats needed is a "New User Start Here" that takes them to a small number of beginner suitable tutorials.

A New User Portal is an excellent idea! I do believe that most of the content is already available in the Wiki, just rather scattered and not easy to find.

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Yeah, probably. I don't tend to focus on platform specific pages, my code is cross platform so, when I hack into a wiki page (except the Installing pages I've done) I tend to write platform agnostic content with embedded notes about platform idiosyncrasies if necessary.

I didn't mean to direct that at you personally ... sorry.

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Anyway, love the job you, Trev and Handoko have done here. A real step forward.

Me and Trev are like one ;)

Otto

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Re: Tutorial page web/wiki
« Reply #31 on: March 09, 2020, 02:30:13 pm »
Hello everyone.

First of all, I would like to congratulate Handoko and trev on the excellent research and cataloging and to kapibara for the organization of his documentation.

The Documentation page is far too long and not organized in a new user focus.  The links they need are certainly there but they are unlikely to find them.  Whats needed is a "New User Start Here" that takes them to a small number of beginner suitable tutorials.

A New User Portal is an excellent idea! I do believe that most of the content is already available in the Wiki, just rather scattered and not easy to find.


I would like to point out that a short time ago I opened a thread regarding support for new users.
https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,48678.0.html

The two concepts could be combined into a single argument (since they are partly overlapping); This would limit fragmentation. In addition, the inexperienced user would be facilitated in finding the introductory material.

Otto.
Kind regards.

minesadorada

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Re: Tutorial page web/wiki
« Reply #32 on: March 09, 2020, 04:36:54 pm »
There is the excellent HTML help system already, so what extra value can a Wiki approach take?
I would suggest - a lot.
Here is the "official" help portal: file:///<lazarus_installdir>/lazarus/docs/index.html  which is the canonical resource - and always up-to-date, but it is not task-oriented, and example source code is not always available.
The "Tools/Example Projects" is also a mine of coding information.

Beginners like example code to both get a kick-start and also learn the language by example, and for that, the Wiki is a useful and accessible resource.
The downside is  of course, lax maintenance of the Wiki.
I started the Wiki category "Code Snippets" purely for my own benefit - often I would follow a forum topic and come across a really good solution which I thought could be lost among the static.
All I had to do was copy/paste the code into a new wiki page, and add "Category:Code Snippets" but being a typical programmer I got lazy and stopped after a while.
This new initiative looks like a real step forwards.
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