Support for Drupal 7 is ending on 5 January 2025—it’s time to migrate to Drupal 10! Learn about the many benefits of Drupal 10 and find migration tools in our resource center.Instead of providing help pages with the drupal distribution, which are fixed in place once installed and never change, link to a corresponding help page on drupal.org. That way the user is guaranteed to always have the latest, most relevant, and most up to date copy of all help content.
This will encourage more help links to appear throughout the product since creating a help link will now only be a simple matter of a patch to link to an existing page, not a convoluted process of synchronizing a files with online content and managing additional files in the install.
Comments
Comment #1
Aren Cambre CreditAttribution: Aren Cambre commentedAdditionally, one of the key strengths of the www is you may link to the most relevant content regardless of where it is. You are not bound to what you possess locally. It's ironic that Drupal fails to take advantage of such a fundamental advantage of the internet on such a fundamental, important feature.
Comment #2
Pasquallemaybe someday..
Comment #3
MichelleGiven the massive effort to improve the help system in Drupal going on, I don't think this move in the opposite direction will happen. Also, moving the help files all to d.o means you need internet access to get to them, which is less than ideal.
Michelle
Comment #4
Aren Cambre CreditAttribution: Aren Cambre commentedUm, how do you get Drupal without an internet connection? Let's not move to "Won't Fix" for that reason!
Online help is where things are going with several products. It just makes sense. Why not Drupal?
Comment #5
MichelleOf course you need an internet connection to get Drupal but you don't need one to develop a Drupal site.
Online help is a horrible trend. I'd hate to see Drupal go that route. I won't get into a status war with you but consider this a big fat -1 from me. Having the docs you need to work with Drupal on your own computer is important and the trend should be towards more of that, not less.
Michelle
Comment #6
MichelleChanging the title to something more meaningful since this is likely to sit in the queue a long time.
Michelle
Comment #7
Damien Tournoud CreditAttribution: Damien Tournoud commentedThe work on the new help system (http://drupal.org/node/299050#comment-1010601) will probably make it easier to replace core documentation and / or extend it with site-specific documentation. This is a very desirable feature.
By linking to d.o, you will only get standard documentation, and frequently more developer-oriented than user-oriented.
So this is a bad idea, and it should be won't fixed.
Comment #8
Aren Cambre CreditAttribution: Aren Cambre commented"By linking to d.o, you will only get standard documentation, and frequently more developer-oriented than user-oriented."
Um, OK, so the solution is to put all this effort into stuff people cannot access from the DO site?
Is Drupal intended for internet use or disconnected, single computer use?
Hello, McFly? Anyone home?
Microsoft really improved Visual Studio and Windows by allowing them to use the latest and greatest documentation directly on their web sites. No more need to rely on a locally-installed, dated cache. I am surprised that Drupal isn't at least on Microsoft's level.
Comment #9
MichelleThere is no need to be insulting. Or have you forgotten that the character you are quoting was an ignorant bully?
Yes, Drupal sites are normally on the web. No, they are not always. Some are on intranets. Some are dev sites being worked on offline. Oddly enough, people tend to use help aimed at setting up their sites more while they are setting them up, which is when they're most likely to be offline.
What MS does isn't always what's best. Unless you are suggesting IE is the best browser out there? Frontpage the best way to make websites? Etc.
Yes, having up to date docs online is nice. But it doesn't replace the need for a solid documentation system coming with Drupal and always accessable whether or not you are connected to the net. Having been frustrated working with more than one piece of software that refused to offer up any help when my wireless was down has underscored the importance of local docs to me.
Michelle
Comment #10
Aren Cambre CreditAttribution: Aren Cambre commentedI'm saying Drupal should be better than Microsoft.
Microsoft's model is to use online documentation and fall back to a local cache if teh interwebs are unavailable. Drupal can't beat Microsoft?
Comment #11
merlinofchaos CreditAttribution: merlinofchaos commentedDrupal sites are often run on intranets, behind firewalls where external access is not allowed.
Drupal developers often do work on laptops that are not currently on the internet.
drupal.org is not under version control and already has problems with versioning anyway. Moving *away* from CVS is the wrong direction.
Currently, drupal.org's manuals are difficult to navigate and have a tendency to build up cruft and the organization breaks down as they grow organically. THey are not suitable for finding immediate help.
Internet links are prone to rot -- what you link to now may not be the same in 3 years, but if you're using a 3 year old version of Drupal you want what was originally there.
If a new help system gets in, that help can be made available both locally and on drupal.org; it can be version controlled so the local version will be for the version of Drupal you are running.
Microsoft is not an example we should be following. Not because I have anything against Microsoft, but because it's apples and oranges.
Comment #12
Aren Cambre CreditAttribution: Aren Cambre commented#523638: Abandon Help module and all embedded help systems