LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Adam Smith <adam.smith@sageautomation.com>
  To  : <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 18:43:18 +1030

RE: Knowledgebasey thing

Sorry, I've been away, and I'll try and catch up :)

Evan Bourtolos:
---------------
 
> why IIS at all anyway?

Only because the software package (Doc2Help, blech) that was suggested
to be used creates some web environment that will only run on IIS.  It
was only a suggestion by colleagues at this point.

Shane Aplin:
------------

> Make the 'knowledgebase' site from static, linked web pages 
> (I know, nightmare for maintainability...but you need static 
> web pages with absolute addresses in order to create the 
> compiled help file).

That's another option, and yes it's pretty disastrous for
maintainability.  Ultimately the best bet for me would to have a
centralized version created stored in a database, then be able to either
compile that directly into a Win32 program that could search and browse,
or into straight HTML documents that could search and browse.

Kim Hawtin:
-----------

> my gut reaction to the situation like this is deploy a wiki
> of some sort. there are many versions about these days.

We do run a Wiki here, but the version (WikiWikiWeb) we run was set up
by one of our developers and so runs on Zope, but they never liked it as
much because this particular version wasn't very flexible and couldn't
be easily searched by means of a search engine.  There were always plans
to try TWiki on Apache however that never got off the ground.  Now that
the "portability" factor has come in, the plans are changing.

> windows based document control software costs a fortune!
> and licencing is a nightmare...

You're not wrong.

> there are tools to rip the copntents of wikis and create
> flat html... especially for CDs

That may be an option, too.

David de Groot:
---------------

> wiki's are amazingly simple to use and phpwiki allows you to 
> export to XML for portability.

That sounds interesting -- with XML portability you can do anything you
like with the data.  I think one of the disadvantages here is that I can
present all of this stuff, and I can argue that with XML portability I
could do whatever I wanted with the data, but then I'd be blocked by
some arguments:

 - We are already licensed for Doc2Help (blech!), we use it for project
documentation etc.

 - It might be gross, but Doc2Help can do all these things without the
need for additional development.  XML portability is extremely flexible
but it still needs something to "plug-in" to.  That would be a further
step that would need to be worked out.

Unfortunately these days with the Microsoft plague hitting the planet,
there's little room for freedom anymore -- I've done so much hard work
to get this company more and more Unix friendly, and I get in a huff
every time something comes along that looks like it's going to involve
Windows :-)

I think a Wiki with portability might be a viable solution.  I'll have
to check that out further and see what can be done.  



Adam


PS