[pmwiki-users] Fwd: RFC PmWiki Tips and Tricks

[The Editor]

On 9/25/06, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 25, 2006 at 03:16:48PM -0400, Crisses wrote:
> > On Sep 25, 2006, at 2:56 PM, Tom Lederer wrote:
> > > Am 25.09.2006 um 20:00 schrieb The Editor:
> > >> I think this is a great idea--as many of the recipes aren't really
> > >> recipes (as in php dropin modules).
> > >
> > > actually i would suggest it the other way round: move all real
> > > modules to a new module group.
> >
> > You might be on to something there.
> >
> > Recipes would be "Create a Blog" -- the page would point to the
> > separate methods to do so, which modules you might need, etc.
> > <snip>
> > So recipes become REAL recipes.  And the tools and ingredients for
> > the recipes are separate?
> > Recipes for...
> > * User Authentication
> > * Anti-Spam security
> > * Blogging
> > * Forums
> > * Comments
> >
> > And each page points to the resources or combinations thereof, which
> > are documented on their own pages...?
> >
> > Is that overly complicated?  People are asking after more and more
> > "how do I combine these?" and "which method should I use, since there
> > are 6 ways of doing this?"
>
> At some point people were proposing the term "bundle" to represent
> ways of combining recipes together to achieve some particular effect.
> It didn't get too far, if only because I'm not sure there are many
> recipes that really work well together as a bundle (with the probably
> exception of John Rankin's many typesetting recipes, which work well
> together as a bundle).
>
> For the "which method should I use" question,, it'd be useful to
> have pages/sections in the cookbook which contrast the many
> ways of achieving specific results.  We can have a standard
> tag or section for identifying the pages that provide comparisons
> of ways to do things.  The hardest part is getting people to write
> the comparisons.  :-)
>
> And, of course, we have the category capability already in place.
> As soon as I get the new (:pagelist:) code in place, I will probably
> add a custom Cookbook pagelist formatter that automatically organize
> and display the cookbook recipes by category (see
> http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/Cookbook-ByCategory for a
> currently slow example of this).  Then it's just a matter of
> appropriately tagging each of the recipes.
>
> Any further suggestions are welcome, however.
>
> Pm

Another solution might be to move forward with the Pm Mag idea, and
use it to include articles (reviews) of recipes, that compare and
contrast.  Then these reviews can link to the appropriate cookbook
pages.  Personally I think the magazine idea will move forward more
quickly if we don't think of it as a publication idea, with so many
articles per issue, put out every so often etc on a given date.  Why
not just a collection of articles (perhaps with some kind of review
process to ensure accuracy and objectivity) and then publish the
articles individually as they come in.  In fact, rather than call it a
magazine why not just call them articles? The recipe page comparing
forms recipes is already one such page.  There may also be some
documentation pages that could be drawn in as well.  Here are some
examples:

My favorite extra markups
Popular styling effects
How to run a successful forum
Maximize security
Using PmWiki as a CMS
Best practices for developing skins
etc.

We could use tags to categorize these articles, or search the articles
directly.  And once we had a good quantity up, we should point people
there first for basic information.  Want a blog?  go to that article
which overviews the options, evaluates the pros/cons of the various
recipes, etc, and gives some best practices tips.  And then rather
than thinking of them as permanent documents, let's allow them to be
updatable as new recipes come out or functions/features change.

This is basically the same idea Pm suggested, only that these pages be
put in a separate group from the cookbook--where they might get
buried.  Personally I still like the idea of separating the modules
from the tips and tricks (the cookbook is just too big).  But having a
separate group for articles/reviews, a group just for recommended
modules, a tips and tricks/faq section, would be really helpful.  We
could of course continue to keep the cookbook sort of as a scrapbook
for everything--a big umbrella.

While I'm thinking about it, why not just go through the cookbook and
provide tags for modules, tips, and articles.  Then those sections of
the site could be created dynamically.  An article on say forms, could
also include a pagelist at the bottom of all the cookbook articles
tagged with "forms".  We could also tag some articles as archived,
which might be excluded from normal searching.  We just need a better
way to organize the information.  We need a simple solution that will
get done.

Cheers,
Caveman