

Ask HN: What do you all use for your documentation / help / community software? - chunkyslink

I'm currently looking to write some help docs and documentation. I'm considering a standard wiki but wondered if anyone has any better experiences.<p>Edit: I've got a web app and I'd like to provide help in the form of a set of web pages. I need something simple and wondered what you all used.
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p4bl0
I think that the answer to your question, as many other, is "it depends",
because it is too open. What kind of documentation? For what kind of tool? Is
it a web app? Is it a programming language? A library or a framework? Is it a
desktop app? Also, who is the target of this documentation? Everyone?
Programmers?

Depending on the answer to these questions, the answer to your question could
vary from "make a video tutorial" to "write some man pages and a good README
file" (with "FAQ page", "wiki", "html and/or pdf complete reference" in
between).

If your question is more about the "how" than the "what" then I suggest using
a format which you can compile to different othe format such as HTML, PDF and
man page (I already worked with DocBook but I didn't like it very much, maybe
reStructuredText is a good candidate I'll have to try some day).

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LarryA
I find dokuwiki to be a great wiki - does not need a database if you don't
want one. Stores data as text files and images, so easy to look at source
data. The access system is nice, can set up access groups. With the right
template you can make it into a nice little CMS. Have used it at work and
Staff seem to be able to get a handle of it pretty easily.

