[documentation] [Documentation task] High level handbook reorganization proposal

[Michelle]

Issue status update for 
http://drupal.org/node/84169
Post a follow up: 
http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/84169

 Project:      Documentation
 Version:      <none>
 Component:    Misc
 Category:     tasks
 Priority:     normal
 Assigned to:  Michelle
 Reported by:  Michelle
 Updated by:   Michelle
 Status:       active

Actually, that /is/ what I was planning. The jump off pages are
currently a list of links simply because I dumped the existing links
from the landing page into them. I might have been premature in showing
this off because it is still so very raw compared to what's in my head,
but I wanted to get opinion on the direction before going any farther on
it.


Since I've heard positive things from a few key people, I will put some
more work into making this less rough.


Thanks for looking,


Michelle




Michelle



Previous comments:
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Thu, 14 Sep 2006 17:50:07 +0000 : Michelle

As a user of the handbook, I find it difficult to start at the Handbooks
tab and navigate to the information I'm looking for. There is just so
much info there and a huge amount of links right on the front page. For
some time, I've been thinking it would be nice to simplify the landing
page and use a sort of upside-down funnel system to get to the
information.


Since I can't go making mass changes in the live handbook, I've been
sketching out my ideas on my own site. Unfortunately, there's no way to
import the actual handbook to my site to make changes so I've done a lot
of copying and pasting. This is still *extremely* rough and most of the
links don't work due to being straight copied from here. I encourage
people to leave comments either on the actual pages or on this issue.
Since I had only one reply when I posted this on the docs list, I
haven't taken any time to work on it since I initially put it up there.
If there's interest, though, and people like the approach I'm taking, I
will gladly continue to flesh it out and make it into something that can
be brought over to the handbook here.


http://shellmultimedia.com/node/2


Thanks for looking,


Michelle




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Fri, 15 Sep 2006 02:03:00 +0000 : webchick

I really like this idea. Currently the /handbook link is a rather
intimidating list of links, and it's difficult for an individual to tell
what they should be looking for without reading each one individually.


The Main Page, + a few graphics like at the proposed contribute page
rewrite [1] looks very good. I'd make the descriptions maybe a hair
longer, maybe identify the appropriate audiences for each section, and
we can tweak the wording on the titles, etc.


The jump-off pages they go to, however, are just lists of links. I'd
like to see these turn not so much into "table of contents" but more
"table of concepts" ... so sort of like the initial jump-off page, but
for that specific handbook. So the About section could have things like
"New to Drupal? here are some links you might find useful: blah blah
blah" .. "Want information about the Drupal community? Try these: blah
blah blah" 


[1] http://drupal.org/node/84172