Re: Ideas for improving documentation of ConTeXt

[Yi Qingliang <niqingliang2003@gmail.com>]

GOOD IDEA！

On Sun, Oct 9, 2016 at 7:18 PM, Jonas Baggett <jonasb@tranquille.ch> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I am new to new to ConTeXt and I was thinking about how to improve
> documentation to help users and then make ConTeXt more appealing. Because,
> if there is one weak point in my eyes with ConTeXt, it is the lack of
> documentation, which is too bad because ConTeXt seems to be really great.
> And google search is also a little tricky, since context is a common name.
> On the other hand, most of the help I found was on the wiki, the mailing
> list, TeX Stack Exchange and some pdf documentations. Sometimes, I also
> faced the problem about the documentation being outdated and when I am
> trying to find the solution on the internet, I may have a hard time finding
> solutions that aren't outdated too. The worse is maybe when a command option
> isn't working anymore with not even a warning.
>
> The basic idea I have is a database of ConTeXt documents, where everyone can
> add his own documents. We have also to make it easy to find there insightful
> examples in ConTeXt that will help someone to achieve what he is trying to
> do. Then users, especially beginners, will less likely be stuck at one point
> and looking for hours for a solution and less help will be asked on the
> mailing list too.
>
> Here are the basic concepts about the database :
> - When someone adds a document, he can specify the type of the document like
> e.g. report, letter, CV, book, etc. Subcategories could be a good idea too,
> e.g. letters can have a subcategory called cover letters. Some extra tags
> could also be useful, like e.g.: math, luatex, tables, positioning, etc when
> there is some use of the preceding, maybe not necessarily essential when the
> use is only basic.
> - If some extra fonts or modules are needed to be installed in order to make
> the example fully work, this could also be specified.
> - Search could be done by specifying one or more categories and tags. It
> will also be possible to search all the occurrences in the database of a
> command with optionally a command parameter.
> - It will be like a wiki so that everyone could improve the existing
> examples.
> - It can be also useful to allow comments, because it is possible that an
> example is close to what someone is trying to do, in which case he will look
> on the comments hoping that there was already someone who asked there the
> question and got answered.
> - In order to mitigate the problem with deprecation stuffs after some
> language changes, we could have all the commands and their options listed
> somewhere in the database, then when a command or command parameter is
> getting deprecated, it will be possible to mark it as so and provide some
> hints on how to fix it. After that, all the examples that use the deprecated
> stuffs will get a warning and hints will be showed about how to fix them.
> And since that examples are editable by anyone, there won't be hopefully
> very much of outdated documents.
>
> Here some are possible scenarios about searching in the database  :
> - Someone is writing a letter and is trying to move one element (e.g. date,
> his address, receiver address) in another location without any success so
> far. Then he will go to this database, choose letter as category and
> positioning as extra tag and launch the search. Maybe he will get about 20
> results, then chances are that some of the found examples will be doing
> something close enough to what he's trying to do, so that he could analyse
> the source and understand what he needs to do in his case.
> - Someone is looking about how to set the background color of a framed box.
> Then he will search occurrences of the uses of the \framed command which
> have color in their arguments. Then by looking at the found examples, he
> will find out that the color is set with the backgroundcolor argument and
> that the background argument need to be set to "color" too.
>
> What do you think about the idea ? I believe this could be a good complement
> to the existing ressources.
>
> Have a nice sunday,
> Jonas
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to
> the Wiki!
>
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl /
> http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
> webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
> archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
> wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
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