Docs Meetup Roundup – Nov 7, 2013 – Make WordPress Documentation

Sorry for the late post, folks. Here’s a rundown of what happened in last Thursday’s Docs Chat:

1. Docs chat time updated

Since Daylight Savings is over, we’re now meeting weekly at 17:00 UTC, which is still 9am Pacific.

2. Docs Issue Tracker Mockups

@sams posted mockups of the Docs Issue Tracker and would like more feedback.

3. Docs Sprints

Last meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. on Nov 2 was productive and we have another coming up Saturday November 16th, for those who can join in person or via IRC.

4. Theme Dev HB Opening

@sams and @sewmyheadon discussed creating a new intro for the Theme Dev Handbook that gets the reader right into a theme from the start. A very basic theme that we can use to illustrate the principles of theme dev. This will give the reader a gentler intro into each main aspect of theme development, and allow us to setup the rest of the more in-depth content.

Right now, the Handbook contains a lot of useful info, but needs to be tailored to getting new developers up-to-speed quickly without overwhelming them with jargon or specifics.

@sewmyheadon will work on this intro for now.

5. Theme & PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party HB Spreadsheets Revamped – need %

@sams revamped the spreadsheets we’re using to catalog the Handbook development progress. There’s now a % column, which we’re using to put our best guess of percentage completion for each page. So, if you’re working on either handbook, please enter in numbers for the pages that you touch, so we can get a better overall estimate of Handbook progress.

6. Inline Docs

Inline Docs posted a status update post, which prompted some new patch contributions.

As of the meeting, the stats are:

Total: 185 files,
Completed: 92 files (49.72%);
In progress: 32 files;
Available to claim: 61 files.

7. DevHub

Is in active development now.

#chat-recap

Siobhan 12:21 pm on November 13, 2013

The updated spreadsheet looks good. However, I’d like to get rid of the “Owner” column. The problem with this is that when I look at the spreadsheet it looks like all of the pages are “claimed” by someone else. This prevents me from picking something to work on – is the person working on it offline? Should I contact the page owner?

Anyone should be able to work on any page at any time – assigning an owner to individual pages prevents that from happening.

We had this problem with the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party developer handbook in that lots of people assigned pages to themselves and then didn’t work on them.
Siobhan 12:23 pm on November 13, 2013

With regards to the theme handbook opening – I agree that this is a good approach. Ian Stewart has said that we can use any of the content from the Theme Shaper tutorial: http://themeshaper.com/2012/10/22/the-themeshaper-wordpress-theme-tutorial-2nd-edition/

I suggest repurposing as much of this as possible as it’s a fantastic guide to getting started.
Eric Amundson 4:21 pm on November 13, 2013

Siobhan,

I agree that the Owner column is confusing. Maybe we can re-title it something like “Contributors,” which would allow us still to keep a record of people who’ve added to it, in case of questions, but won’t be so off-putting.

We could also incorporate some instructions into the spreadsheet, if that would help.

That’s terrific about Ian’s allowing us to use content from the Theme Shaper tutorial – will definitely make good use of that. 🙂
- Siobhan 4:48 pm on November 13, 2013
  
  We can pull information on who has contributed to a Page directly from WordPress so I’m not sure if it’s necessary to have a Contributor column. That said, if you want a quick visual in the spreadsheet it’d be worth leaving.
  
  I’m working my way through editing what we have there already but let me know if there’s anything specific that you want me to look at. Am happy to knock together a step by step guide to creating a theme (based on the Theme Shaper stuff) once I get WC London out of the way (next week! yay!).
  - Sam Sidler 5:18 pm on November 13, 2013
    
    How about “Lead” to indicate who’s heading up the work? Yes, anyone can contribute (if not by changing the post itself, then by comment on it) but we definitely want a person that’s overseeing the work and everyone should know who that is.
    
    I’d be fine with contributors too, of course.
    - Siobhan 5:21 pm on November 13, 2013
      
      Lead doesn’t make sense since the people who have put their name down aren’t leading the page. We had a problem with people “leading” pages before and then disappearing. It puts other people off from contributing to that page.
      
      The person overseeing the work for each handbook is the editor for each handbook (currently Eric and Hanni). They are the point of contact for every page. We don’t need to complicate things by having multiple leads for each handbook.
      - Eric Amundson 5:24 pm on November 13, 2013
        
        I agree. It’s hard enough to get contributors to show up, so the folks listed in the column-formerly-known-as-responsible may have contributed once or twice, but they really didn’t become responsible for the content.
        
        There are a lot of names listed from people who contributed > 6 months ago.
        
        I’d recommend “Contributors” just to keep quick track of them, and in case we want to contact them for review.
  - Eric Amundson 5:22 pm on November 13, 2013
    
    I’d like to leave a column in the spreadsheet for quick reference if that’s okay.
    
    Siobhan, thanks for your help with this. I’ll see if I can work on incorporating Ian’s Theme Shaper content this Saturday at our docs sprint.
    - Siobhan 5:27 pm on November 13, 2013
      
      leaving the column as “Contributors” works for me. I’m going to work fairly intensely on these for the next month so you can take it for granted that I’ve contributed to all of them 😉

Want to get involved?

Weekly meetings

Docs Meetup Roundup – Nov 7, 2013

1. Docs chat time updated

2. Docs Issue Tracker Mockups

3. Docs Sprints

4. Theme Dev HB Opening

6. Inline Docs

7. DevHub

Want to get involved?

Weekly meetings

1. Docs chat time updated

2. Docs Issue Tracker Mockups

3. Docs Sprints

4. Theme Dev HB Opening

6. Inline Docs

7. DevHub

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