Thread

First, does EE run the User Guide on this site? If so, is there any information available about how that is implemented? How about the Knowledge Base? (These are two very well implemented sections of the EE website, and it’d be fantastic if EllisLab provided some information about how to do similar things with EE.)

I’ve got a User Guide for a product that needs to be published online and in print. I’d love to use EE to run the online version, and apply a special CSS file to enable the whole thing to be printed. That way, I only need to make changes and updates in one place, and the document can be accessed or printed on demand.

What is the best way to approach a project like this…

Idea 1: Weblogs.

Seems like the default answer for EE projects… and I suppose it could be done with categories… very heavily nested categories. Or the new pages module… but what would a “print everything” template look like?

Idea 2: Wiki.

Seems like a perfect way to categorize things… but less structured, probably… and again, where is the “print the whole thing” functionality?

I love Expression Engine and Ellis Labs products and support. But the lack of any convenient way to get a printable copy of the up-to-date user documentation has been a longstanding problem noted by many. It should be given a higher priority in my humble opinion.

I agree, Chris… though I’m inclined to think that there just might be an elegant way of accomplishing this that is well within the capabilities of EE, and just slightly out of reach of my creativity.

LISAAAAA! INGMARRRRR! HEEEAAAALLLLLPPPPPPP!  😜

As far as I know, EllisLab uses weblog for the online documentation and the KB, yes. Without claiming any special/insder knowledge, the setup looks quite straight forward to me.

Well… that is my assumption also, especially since they added user commenting in the docs, but we (Chris and I) are trying to figure out how to go about implementing it, and how to then generate a printed document to include the entire contents…

Can you get us started?

Actually, the documentation is handled by static files, so that we can update it via SVN.  Derek explained it here and a few other threads that I didn’t search for too hard, honestly.

The knowledge-base is done via a weblog, yes.

hiya Lisa—

I searched several of those threads also, but most pertained to a supposed lack of EE documentation, which, as you point out, is available in several locations.  The challenge that I’m asking about is using EE’s weblog functionality to publish a User Guide for any product (not EE), and then somehow printing a hardcopy publication using that online entity and some extra CSS.

For example: I have a user guide for blue widgets, and I want to make that user guide available online (in roughly the same format as the EE user guide), and then I want to apply an @media and print the thing.

I’m trying to figure out how to approach that problem, not print the EE docs. (Sorry for not initially being clear.)

Hmm, I don’t know whether printing “all documents/pages” from a web is easily achieved. It might be possible using some clever scripting but I’m no programmer! Depending on the size of the documents you *might* be able to call a page and dump the entire contents into it with appropriate CSS for a one click print.

EE can easily handle online documentation but if you wanted a complete downloadable version I’d suggest using a PDF. Yes this does duplicate some work but if you hold all your master data separately from your web site then updating shouldn’t be too much of a chore.

If the data is in EE, you can output it however you want using templates, so you can make a printable copy.  You can convert to PDF as well, you’ll just need to build something to use one of the PHP libraries to do so - no-one has yet, that I know of, released a plugin/module/extension for this.

But it’s certainly possible to output your data into a printable form, using a print stylesheet or another template or both.

thanks Lisa… of course, the question is no longer if it can be done, but how... and I’m exploring as I can, but given my inexperience on this platform, I wonder if you can give us a start…

If all the information were in linear blog posts, it would be very easy to write a template to dump everything at once. I’m uncertain, though, of how to do it with more structural organization. For example, a user guide is divided into sections, which are divided into topics, which are divided into subtopics, and so forth… maintaining that structure is what we’re trying to figure out.

It doesn’t seem like it makes sense to use categories to create sections of content, but I could be amiss there…

...any thoughts?

Mike - unfortunately, from what you are saying, you really need someone with both expertise in technical writing, and in ExpressionEngine, to help you organize your content in a way that works both online, and can be printed to make sense offline. I highly recommend contacting some folks fro the Pro Network (http://expressionengine.com/professionals) to help you with this, give them detailed information and get a quote.

Best of luck with the project - it is certainly possible with EE, it just needs examination on how to handle it in a way that can scale as the documentation grows, and in a way that can be printed in the same, scalable, fashion.

The technical writing part is done. It’s just EE stuff that needs figuring out at this point.

I’m considering the advantages and disadvantages of using a categorical structure for the sections, and also evaluating ways in which the Wiki might fit the bill.

What options are there for pulling wiki content into the website templates?

What options are there for pulling wiki content into the website templates?

The query module, basically. =)

Mike, you can change the look and feel of the wiki to match the rest of your site. You’re not restricted to the themes that come with it.

You could do a manual either way. There’s no rule that says you have to allow endusers to make changes to wiki entries. 😊

I love Expression Engine and Ellis Labs products and support. But the lack of any convenient way to get a printable copy of the up-to-date user documentation has been a longstanding problem noted by many. It should be given a higher priority in my humble opinion.

One possible solution might be to recycle all your html hard work to output the result in perfect print typography, either for paper printing or .pdf output, using the fantastic PrinceXML tool.

It’s a little daunting at first sight, but well worth investigating.

Anyway, that’s what i’m going to use

It’s free id you don’t mind the discreet Princexml logo on the side.