By ryooki on

I've read over and over in my short time using Drupal that we need an FAQ. I agree! Anyone interested in tackling this project with me? What items do you think should be in an FAQ?

Comments

eschipper’s picture

eschipper commented

One thing I notice in browsing the forums is an expectation among many newbies that all they have to do is put Drupal on their webserver and will magically have a professional website. It has been my experience that the installation was relatively painless, but it has taken weeks (not full time) of php coding, and css tweaking to get my site to function the way I want it to. This may not be necessary for a basic site, but what I'm trying to say is that if you want your site to work your way, you'll have to dig into the PHP. Unless you're willing to wait and wait and wait and wait until someone else does it for you and shares their work.

ryooki’s picture

ryooki commented

Yeah, you're totally right... If you want it to get it perfect for you, you'll have to do it yourself... How do we tell that to Newbies?

#) How do I get Drupal to do exactly what I want?

Answer: Unfortunately, there is not easy answer for this question. Drupal is designed to be very customizable, but to get the exact functionality you want, you might have to code it yourself. Chances are someone else might have thought of an answer already or may have dealt with that issue. You can check the current custom modules available for download to see if someone has designed a one that deals with an idea of yours. You can ask on the forums, and that may or may not get answered as the forums move very quickly. To increase chances your question will get answered, please take a look at this guide to posing in the forums. ***Hey - what happened to the forum posting guide? I can't find it***
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zirvap’s picture

zirvap commented

Hey - what happened to the forum posting guide? I can't find it

I looked for it recently when I arrived here, and found it at http://drupal.org/forum-posting . It would be useful if there was a link to it from the main forum page.

jt6919’s picture

jt6919 commented

from the handbook page you already have an FAQ for troubleshooting under "configuration and customization". You also have some best practices guidelines.

I have thought that there should be something beyond the install forum, a newbie section, a top post FAQ sticky, something for getting started, etc. If you look at the install.txt you get with and drupal install you see there is nothing beyond the last steps for administration (permissions), and setting up a theme. It just says "visit the handbook at drupal.org". And users who setup via Fantastico never even see the install.txt.

I think this type of FAQ should be everywhere - linked in the forums, placed in the handbook, and even in the drupal admin help. The type of FAQ I'm thinking of would be one to address the most common questions in the installation and how do I forums. Maybe it should be a combo first time setup guide / FAQ...seems like everything could go in these sections:

My install failed...what do I do?
- I get a blank page
- I get an error
- database install failed
- et al....
My install partially worked...how do I fix?
- I can't post content
- I can't get to administer
- crons don't work
- et al...
My install worked, but how do I...?
- post inline images
- setup a forum
- use the taxonomy
- install a module
- modify my theme
- et al...

I would be willing to participate in something like this...

ryooki’s picture

ryooki commented

Hey, you're right. I didn't even look at the handbook - or probably more likely, I didn't see it when I did look. There is no FAQ under the install section, which is definately what we need. If you want to write a page, you can. You can write child page for the Installation and upgrading handbook, and then submit an issue to the documentation people. Only, I don't know how to submit an issue to the documentation people from the website. (I've just emailed them directly).
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ryooki’s picture

ryooki commented

By the way, check out documentation writer's guide when you do decide to write a page.
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www.liberalthinkers.org - a community for liberal viewpoints.

ryooki’s picture

ryooki commented

Oh, found the documentation issue page - http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation

If you create a topic here, it will automatically go out to the documentation mailing list.
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www.liberalthinkers.org - a community for liberal viewpoints.

jt6919’s picture

jt6919 commented

but how do we get the page listed in other places.....I won't waste my time authoring an FAQ page that is buried and only listed in the handbook section.

someone needs to buyoff on the fact that we need something like this accessible from everywhere...

ryooki’s picture

ryooki commented

I would raise that concern with the documentation people. They are the one's who can change the documentation.
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jt6919’s picture

jt6919 commented

who are these "documentation people" and how do you contact them?

ryooki’s picture

ryooki commented

The documentation people are the people on the documentation mailing-list who have privledges to change documentation. If you submit a documentation issue, as I mentioned in an earlier post, it will be sent out to the documentation mailing list & posted in that issue forum. I don't know who they all are, but I've communicated with some of them.
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puregin’s picture

puregin commented

I guess I'm one of the 'documentation people' :)

I agree that having a pure FAQ, not buried in a Handbook, would be
useful.

What I mean by a pure FAQ is one that is based on questions which are frequently asked. The point of this would be to guide searching and provide quick answers where these might be available. Hence the topics should really come from looking at the forums, and examining the logs from search, as well as getting input from people about what questions they needed answered when first encountering Drupal.

I will lobby for this on the documentation list.

Djun

--
puregin

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented

However well organized the administration menu, newbies will need help in where to find things.

So. . .

Have an open-ended question: "Where do I find the administration options to do this. . .?"

And link that question to a list.

For example:

(Where do I go to. . . )

. . . Assign articles (in mass) to taxonomy categories?

Answer: administer>content>assign categories

. . . Change the size of trimmed posts?

Answer: administer>content>configure

. . . Supress the name and time for postings?

Answer: administer>themes>configure
(uncheck "Display post information on. . . ")

. . . Disable comments?

Answer:

For individual nodes:

Go to the node itself.
(find it at "administer>content")
Then edit the "user comments" box for the node.

For content "types" ("story," etc.):

administer>content>configure>content types
Then, for each type, go to "configure"
and edit the "Default comment setting."

Newbies will thank you.

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented

I recommended having a list that would answer the question ""Where do I find the administration options to do x?"

As recent evidence that this would be useful, see for example drupal.org/node/61168.

Cordially,
O Govinda

sgwealti’s picture

sgwealti commented

I know there are tons of posts on the "cacheing" issues but as far as I can tell there's no definitive guide to dealing with this problem. From searching I can't even tell if the caching problems are all going to be solved with a default intstall of 4.7. Anyway, I think that sort of thing would be a good topic to have in a FAQ.