[drupal-docs] supplying version number for handbook pages

[Angie Byron]

Charlie Lowe wrote:
> Could it not be best to use a fixed taxonomy for the version information
> so that we control what is applied to each page so that it is uniform?
> Meanwhile, freetagging would be useful for assigning keywords to pages
> separately from the version information.

Yeah, I think definitely fixed taxonomy for the Drupal releases (we wouldn't
want to sift through items tagged "Drupal 4.7" and "Drupal 4.7.x" and "droopull
four-point-seven", etc. ;)). The idea of free-tagging individual pages though is
very interesting, though I worry about the "searchability" of this if I'm
looking for pages about "Flash" having to search "flash", "flash xmlrpc", "flash
integration", etc. But I have not looked too closely at free tagging so it's
possible my concerns are moot. :)

For the handbook pages themselves, I was thinking a multi-select vocabulary
setup like the following:

Drupal Version
- Drupal 4.5 and older
- Drupal 4.6
- HEAD

And then when Drupal 4.7 comes out, we rename HEAD to Drupal 4.7 and add a new
HEAD (this should work as the term IDs would be the same). This way people
aren't posting a bunch of questions to the forums/IRC asking where they can
download Drupal 4.7 before it's 'ready.' And while there are the occasional
things that change between sub-releases (for example, XML-RPC in 4.6.3 is
completely different than 4.6.0), these are relatively few and a note can just
be placed on the page in that case.

We'd tag everything "Drupal 4.6" by default until such time as it had been
reviewed by a docs team member. Then, it would either be added to HEAD as well
(meaning the information there is relevant to both), or if the information
contained there was different between the two versions, the Drupal 4.7-relevant
information would remain as the "main" page, and a sub-page could be created
with the 4.6 information in it.

My absolute pie-in-the-sky way of this working though, would be some concept of
"branches" like CVS/SVN as Bèr suggests. But there are a couple problems with
that specific approach:

1. I have no idea how we would synchronize what's in CVS/SVN with what's in the
book module.
2. There are already too few people contributing documentation; adding another
level of complexity (learning a version control software) creates another
barrier to the process (though on the flip-side, it would undoubtedly be much
faster for those of us who know how to use CVS than going through web forms).

It would be awesome if there was some way to "branch" from within the book
module/revisions system. For example, if we could take my 4.6 info and indicate
"create new version" or something, this would add another tab to the top of the
book page for Drupal 4.6 containing only that information. That way, when people
are looking for XML-RPC information, for example, could find both in the same place.

Anyway, enough rambling from me, I should go have some caffeine before I post
long e-mails like this. :P

-Angie