Music Production > MilkyTracker Community

MilkyTracker User's Guide (inna wiki stylee)

(1/5) > >>

raina:
As some of you may have noticed the announcement on the documentation page, we are looking to start a MilkyTracker user manual in wiki form. If you're experienced with wikis, I would like to hear suggestions (with reasoning) for a suitable platform because there seems to be a ton of options.

What we'd like it to be like is:

* W3C compliant like the rest of the site
* able to embed media
* preferably easily customizable so that it would  blend in with the site nicely
* simple
* light
* fast
* strawberry scented
and also, it should run on PHP/MySQL. So, if you do know a good wiki platform that matches most of this description, let's hear about it. (I'm currently looking at WikkaWiki but haven't decided yet.)

maruchan:
Dokuwiki has worked well for me, but I use it on a very limited basis. It seems quite extendable if you want to do fancy things with media, like embedding a MOD/XM player or something.

phire:
I've used dokuwiki,
Its very extensible, and it doesn't need a database (can be counted as both a good thing, and a bad thing)

But it might have scalability issues, and the default theme is horrible from a user interface design prescriptive, Takes me 5min to find the login link (somewhere near the bottom.)

But if your making your own theme, that shouldn't be a problem (remember, login link at the top right (top-center or top-left isn't that bad) of the page.

DasKreestof:
Raina,
I was going to mention this on another thread, and I suppose it deserves it's own thread, but I'm going to mention it here anyway.

I am very grateful that Milkytracker has the amount of documentation that it has. It really has a lot for a free program in such a niche market. I respect the tremendous amount of work that has gone into creating and maintaining that documentation.

That said: As one can deduce from the forums, sometimes the documentation is lacking. Obviously someone has considered crowdsourcing to expand the documentation through a wiki.  I love wiki's but the downside of a wiki is that I can't keep the wiki on my PDA and read it on the airplane. (I was excited to be using Milkytracker on a plane this weekend)

In leau of a wiki, perhaps a skeleton document could be created, one that could be uploaded to the site. Crowdsource contributors could copy and paste updated sections to this site or perhaps mail contributions to a gmail address. Then you as the official maintainer of the manual could update the official manual through copy and pasting.  If that idea is bad, it could be a manual addendum.

I realize that this only works if people actually contribute. I realize that's rare, and that talk is cheap. There's a big difference between wanting to volunteer, and uploading finished work.  I know I would like to help. But I also know that I am frequently over reaching the limits of what my schedule will allow.

Anyway, what I would add to the manual is:
A chapter listing the differences between the Pocket PC version and the full version. (which isn't many)
A chapter broken down by section of each page of Milkytracker. Each section documenting all features of each page.
I realize this is a huge job, and will create a huge manual. But if the crowd steps up to the job, it's becomes a much easier task.  It will also allow many questions about undocumented features to be answered with RTFM!

Does this make sense?
For example - The boost function doesn't just boost the amplitude of a waveform, it also alters it's EQ right?  This kind of documentation of a feature can result in creativity. (I believe I learned about that in one of the tutorial videos.)

If you think this is a good idea, perhaps I will start on creating a skeleton addendum document. That way my idea is a way of volunteering you to do more work.

raina:
Good input. And definitely deserving its own thread, if there already wasn't a perfect one for it. So, here you go, welcome to the user's guide thread. :)

I fully get your point about the limited portability of a wiki. Originally when I thought about doing this thing in wiki form, I was not only thinking about contributors but how the modular structure (BS for bite size articles) and simple editing would inspire myself to write a better and more comprehensive manual. While it still sounds tempting, I'll have to take our point into consideration and maybe steer away from wikis OR find one where it is easy to create and download snapshots to go.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page