Beck, Mike wrote:
hi all,
what i think should still be improved is the way to get to the documentation... at the moment we basically assume (hope/pray whatever) that anybody has read the document fully and still remembers it when he uses PMA.
now my suggestion would be to have a small function call+AF8-docu(+ACQ-anchor)
which, depending on wether javascript can be used, will write the javascript code to open the docu at the specified anchor, or a simple +ADw-a href+AD4- together with some nice little ? symbol. then we would 'just' have to go through the docu and enter lots of anchors so we can call this function at all places throughout pma to show the user an easy way towards the docu.
idealy a ? icon should be beside every user input field. now this would require some more docu +AF8-and+AF8- i really think by then we should split up the docu into smaller parts, so that we don't need to send the whole docu file every time, so it would be something like: call+AF8-docu(+ACQ-topic,+ACQ-anchor).
My idea was to introduce something like context help in phpMyAdmin. I'd also add those ? icons to the interface, but instead of jumping to an anchor in the documentation I'd prefer to display a short (maybe even localized) text in a JS window that tells the user more a bout a specific interface element. I'd also offer this context help for popular error messages i.e. if the MySQL server refuses the username / password.
- wasn't there some thought on having the docu in a different format?
(sgml, xml or whatever)
XML would allow us to translate and modify the documentation more easily.
- i expect nobody ever really hoped we could get the whole docu
translated, or?
During the Easter holidays I had a little too much time... So... I have a German docu for 2.2.6-dev that is at about 50%... ;-) I don't think we need a translated documentation in the distribution, but it would be something nice for phpMyAdmin.net, wouldn't it?
Have a clean RC4,
Alexander