Re: [Fab-user] Contributing documentation?

[Christian Vest Hansen]

Getting the assistance of a real tech writer is fantastic!

I don't know anything about what processes, techniques or tools that
tech writers use it is a bit hard for me to help get you started. I
haven't actually worked with a tech writer before.

It is true that Jeff has a lot of changes in the works, but it is also
true that the current user guide[1], which I think is the primary
introductory text to most users, is not as thorough as it could be.

A couple of things that could be elaborated:
 * the host string format (the kind of values allowed in fab_hosts).
 * how to write commands that takes arguments.
 * how Fabric establishes its connections (I wrote about this on this
mailing list a while back).
 * that there's no support for SSH gateways and ForwardAgent, and
probably other SSH configurations that I don't know of.
 * how to use @roles - see doc/samples/roles/fabfile.py.

Jeff would know how much of this is likely to see significant changes.

Currently, the use guide is written in Markdown and located in
doc/site/user_guide.md. The HTML version is generated by running
bin/generate.py in that directory, or `fab website` in the source
root, and the output is placed in doc/site/fab.

The easiest way for me to accept changes, is through forks on
github[2], but patches on the mailing list works too.

[1]: http://www.nongnu.org/fab/user_guide.html
[2]: http://github.com/karmazilla/fabric/tree/master

On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 7:15 PM, Daniel Beck <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I started using Fabric last week and it really spared me a lot of
> tedious, time-consuming activity. I'm really pleased with this tool. I
> noticed that the documentation seems well behind the code I
> downloaded--which wasn't too much of a problem, thanks to some helpful
> comments in the source. As a technical writing student who knows a bit
> of Python, I thought contributing to the documentation would be good
> way for me to help out.
>
> But I don't want to duplicate any effort or devote my energy to
> something that's not especially needed at the moment. What docs need
> updating first and what docs don't exist that should?
>
> I'd really like to help out, so if someone would point me in the right
> direction, I'd appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> --Daniel
>
>
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>



-- 
Venlig hilsen / Kind regards,
Christian Vest Hansen.