Talk:Collaborative Documentation Solutions

Using a wiki (or anything that requires to use a web-browser) is a real pain for writing documentation. The web browser is an extremely hostile environment for text editing, and I for one would never attempt to write an substantial text using it. --Colin-adams 06:53, 11 June 2008 (PDT)

--Jocelyn 08:34, 11 June 2008 (PDT): I agree online editing is not always that nice, but we can hope - that in the future - there are offline (or remote desktop) editor which can help. Or any better online editor using rich interface technologies.

Anyway editing wiki online, is much easier than editing XML (docbook, DITA,...) online. I know doc-wiki provides such online editor, or even STORM editor for DITA, but for now, they are just heavy and not that convenient.

Currently we use a tool "doc_builder" (internal tool) to edit our xmldoc (internal XML format) to maintain the documentation and generate either HTML or .CHM, and to centralize the content, we use subversion.

This works so so; using the doc_builder tool is not really user friendly, and when someone wants to contribute, this is not that easy. So online content system seems a good alternative.

--Paulb 09:33, 12 June 2008 (PDT) I just checked out a few things and one thing we need to be on the look out for is search capabilities. Our current wiki is terrible as are most wikis. We cannot have a documentation system with abysmal searching functionality.

Also I think the solution must export to PDF. Personally I have used this feature many times with ADC, Apple's on line documentation. It allows me to download approriate pages and have them when I'm not connected and can read on any number of device (PC, iPhone, eBook or even Sony's PSP). I can select my reader software, place bookmarks, etc. Things that just cannot be done with on-line documentation solutions today.