wiki:ImprovingBoostDocs

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Improving Boost Docs Project


Table of contents

  1. Objectives
  2. Resources
    1. Project output
    2. Communication channels
    3. Community building tools
    4. Statistics
  3. How to help
  4. Downloads
  5. Project Wiki
  6. People
  7. Team Mascot
  8. Acknowledgments


Objectives

Design

  • Build up a long term community of people that cares and constantly improve boost documentation and tools.
  • Achieve an unified look and feel between docs and Boost resources, integrating them as much as possible.
  • Quality documentation

    • Provide correct, current and readable documentation for the Boost C++ libraries, tools, environment and organization.

    • Generate Glue docs that sees boost as one tied entity, providing real-world examples, best practices for common tasks and tutorials about how to combine Boost libraries together to build high-quality C++ applications.

    • Provide a publicly available, vendor-neutral reference manual for the Standard C++ library, STL concepts, data types and algorithms as part of the Boost library documentation.

    • Make it easier for users to navigate through the enormous amount of boost documentation.

    • Use latest version of standards and support old browsers.

    • Include nice looking logos and diagrams. Although Boost libraries are so great that they do not need any marketting at all, lets face it: people are attracted like flies to catchy names and fancy pictures.
  • Documentation tools and support

    • Improve the docs tool chain, simplifying and integrating it lowering the barrier for people willing to help us.

    • Develop tools to automate common task, and to make life easier to boost authors. Docs writers should concentrate on generating content and not on figthing with tools.

    • Work to make doc tools boost-agnostic. We believe that they are useful beyond the boost community, and would welcome anyone who wishes to use, extend or support them.
  • Generate formal documents about C++ documentation best practices.
  • Offer our help to libraries authors. This include translations, proof-reading, proposing examples and tutorials for their libraries and helping them with the docs tool chain.
  • Offer a place where not C++ experts can help the Boost community. In general the tasks we do here does not involve template metaprogramming or others complex C++ machinery. Dessigners, artists, teachers, web experts, Python programmers and Boost users are very welcome along our lines.
  • Write docs, include rationales, use our own tools. If we want to improve boost docs, we should start by showcasing best practices in this project.
  • Enjoy our work. If we are not having fun while improving boost docs something has gone terribly wrong.

Resources

Resources

At IBD we use several open source tools to organize our efforts. In this section the purpose of each resource is explained. When possible, IBD resources will be interlinked and share a common look and feel allowing a consistent experience for both users and developers.

Although the only resources that every IBD developer must use are the boost docs subversion repository, the boost docs list and the project Wiki, we encourage you to read this section and use the rest of the tools; Combined they are a complete community development suite.

Project output

Subversion
Subversion repository
Our control revision control system. It is integrated to Trac allowing you to browse the code from the web.

Vault
Boost Vault
Boost Docs and subproject releases Glue Docs Vault.
It has an integrated counter so we can track how many people is using our work.

Documents
On-line Docs
We maintain an on-line version of the documentation that is already conformant with the new documentation guidelines.


Communication channels

IBD Wiki
Project Wiki
Main organization tool.
It contains formal information about subprojects and the work being done by each developer.
The main purpose is to showcase our progress and avoid work duplication.
It has a structured layout to organize our workflow. New project ideas are not added directly, but after a thoughtful discussion on other channels.

Nabble
Boost-docs list
This is were the actual work is shared and discussed. It acts as the boost-devel list for our project.
Lists are a good medium for daily work. It is a working place, all our progress must pass through the boost-docs list to be viewed by every person involved in the project.
You can sign in here.

Trac
Trac Tickets system
We are currently working on a formal proposal to take advantage of Trac Ticket system for the project.
We will use it for translations tracking, subprojects control, feature requests and bugs report.

RSS Feed
RSS news feed
The IBD news feed consists of formal announces about the things going on in the project, they are very short and direct headlines.
Some of the common subjects are new members, new subprojects, help requests and completed translation.


Community building tools

Blogger
Community Blog
A record of the things that happens behind the scenes, our next objectives and the social and philosophical aspects of IBD.
The Blog subjects are things like summaries of private conversations, possible directions for the project and new ideas.
It includes behind the scenes content, it is a place where you can see what is going on in the developers mind and a tool to make us a tidy community by given contributors an informal forum where to express tthemselves
There is a precedent of using Blogs for philosophical discussions, and it is a lot easier to people not related to the project to comment on our progress there. We encourage you to participate both as a blogger or commenting about our posts.

Linked In
Linked in network
A service for maintaining professional networks. We will use it to organize our contacts from the project.


Statistics

ohloh
IBD at ohloh
Statistics about our project, code and contributors.
It offers a stacks and kudos system too, that can be used as community building tools.

Statcounter
Statcounter
Web pages activity statistics.
Currently it is only integrated in the Community Blog. In the future we will gather information from Boost main page, the Wiki pages and boost on-line documentation.

Gmane
List activity
Messages per day plot of Boost-docs list.


How to help

Help wanted

There are small projects waiting for one or two folks to jump into them.

Other ways to help us

  • Jump in as a browser tester ( More information in the browser testing chart page )
  • Docs Translator ( More information in the docs translations project page )
  • Comment about our work. We need constant feedback, please scream your opinion in the boost-docs list.
  • Lot of documentation on this Wiki is being written by non-native English speaker. Just reading and correcting expressions and paragraph will be appreciated.

If you are...

  • ... a web designer, you can help us with our HTML docs projects.
  • ... an artist, you can propose graphics to make boost look fancier.
  • ... a teacher, you can write tutorials for the Glue Docs project.
  • ... a Boost user, you can provide us with real life examples for the Glue Docs project.
  • ... a Python programmer, you can help us integrating stuff into Trac.

Downloads


Boost Docs 2007-07-01

Boost Docs 2007-07-01 at Boost Vault
svn export http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/boost_docs/tags/boost_docs_2007-07-01

Release notes

  • Initial version of Boost.DocTest
  • Initial version of Boost Style
    • Modular CSS design.
    • CSS based admonitions and navigation graphics.
    • Quickbook source stylesheet.
  • Boostbook improvements
    • Almost Valid XHTML 1.1 output.
    • New header and footer based on beta.boost.org.
    • GroupedLinks select boxes for Boost Libraries and Section quick jumping.
    • Google Search box over our docs.
    • Box-wrapper based blurbs that allow us to include rounded corners, drop shadows, etc.
    • Alternatives syntax highlighting including most common IDEs.
    • Chapter logo support.
    • Parameters clean up.
    • A new PDF stylesheet based on the unified look and feel project.
  • Quickbook improvements
    • Initial support for SVG images in HTML docs.

Installation Notes

Copy the contents of the Boost Docs zipped file into an up to date Boost package.


Project Wiki

Improving Boost Docs Wiki

  • Boost Docs repository
    We are working on several boost tools to support the new features and improve their usability. This work is stored in boost sandbox. Go to the boost docs repository page to learn how it is organized.
  • Unified look & feel project
    Although Boost libraries are independent entities, together they build a superb and tied library. If we want People to understand this we must provide an unified style for our docs and resources. This project will define the guidelines for the new look and feel of Boost.
  • Docs Translations
    If we want to have an unified look and feel in boost docs, we need that all documentation be in a standard format. We are translating HTML based docs to Docbook format. There are a lot of documents to translate, we need more volunteers to help in the process. If you want to participate go to the docs translations project page. (We now have a bunch of tools that makes painless the process, please jump in!)
  • Glue Docs
    Boost libraries documentation are an impressive tool to learn about how individual libraries work. However we are missing integration documentation, that sees boost as a whole. How do we do common task, which libraries are powerful when combined, real life examples; are important documentation we can not expect boost authors to provide. The Glue Docs project objective is to build the necessary meta-library documentation for Boost.
  • Standard C++ Library Docs
    Provide a publicly available, vendor-neutral reference manual for the Standard C++ library, STL concepts, data types and algorithms as part of the Boost library documentation.
  • Documentation Best Practices
    Formal documents about C++ documentation best practices.
  • Documentation Tools
    Projects to improve the docs tool chain, simplifying and integrating it lowering the barrier for people willing to help us.
  • Subprojects
    There are some small subprojects targeted to solve specific needs. Go to the subprojects page to participate in them.
  • Browser testing
    Volunteers are periodically testing the new docs in each platform and browser.
  • Libraries Logos
    Go to the logo playground page to find proposed logos for Boost libraries.

People

The people list here is working on this project of has done work on the tools in wich this work builds up. Some of them may not endorse all the proposal of the project, but all have gave their blessing to it. If you are working for this project and do not appear here, please add yourself to the list. If you are listed and want to share your mail and picture here, please add them.



Andrew Sutton
Ohloh Statistics
asutton at cs dot kent dot edu

Cédric Venet
Cédric Venet
Linked In Profile
cedric dot venet at student dot ecp dot fr


Darren Garvey
Ohloh Statistics
unknown mail


Dave Abrahams
Ohloh Statistics
Linked In Profile
dave at boost-consulting dot com

Douglas Gregor
Douglas Gregor
Ohloh Statistics
unknown mail

Eric Niebler
Eric Niebler
Ohloh Statistics
Linked In Profile
unknown mail


Filip Konvička
unknown mail

Glyn Matthews
Glyn Matthews
Linked In Profile
glyn dot matthews at gmail dot com

Jake Voytko
Jacob Robert Voytko
Ohloh Statistics
jakevoytko at gmail dot com

Joel de Guzman
Joel de Guzman
Ohloh Statistics
Linked In Profile
unknown mail

John Maddock
John Maddock
Ohloh Statistics
unknown mail

Matias Capeletto
Matias Capeletto
Ohloh Statistics
Linked In Profile
matias dot capeletto at gmail dot com


Paul Bristow
unknown mail


Peter Foley
boost at ifoley dot id dot au

Rene Rivera
Rene Rivera
Ohloh Statistics
Linked In Profile
unknown mail

Stjepan Rajko
Stjepan Rajko
Ohloh Statistics
stjepan dot rajko at gmail dot com

Stuart Dootson
Stuart Dootson
stuart dot dootson at gmail dot com


Team Mascot


Mafalda - Team Mascot
Mafalda
Team Mascot

She is a English Springer Spaniel from Argentina, currently living with Matias. Mafalda is helping him with the project Wiki page. She just barks once in a while, but that is a lot.


Acknowledgments

http://matias.capeletto.googlepages.com/thanks.png

Big thanks to Daniel James, Janek Kozicki, João Abecasis, Matt Doyle, Michael Marcin. You are welcome to became active members of the project, in that case please add yourself to the list above. Thanks to all the others that have help us with discussion on the boost list.



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