We had a meeting about formatting, style, and other general handbook stuff.
In attendance: Me, Japh Thomson, Aaron Osteraas, Tom McFarlin, Ryan Imel, Curtis McHale, Bradley Jones, Chris Reynolds, Dougal Campbell (briefly), all the randoms on Google Plus who felt like dropping by.
I’m afraid that I didn’t manage to record it. But here’s what we discussed:
1. Review of the schema
Consensus was that it looks good.
2. Review of current WordPress writing tips
We’re happy with these and I’ll make a copy of them for the docs blog.
3. Tone and voice
We agreed that a consistent tone of voice would be good throughout. This is a discussion to have between content people like me and any branding/marketing people who would like to get involved. At the minute WordPress does have a style and tone but there’s nothing written down.
4. Formatting
Formatting is good. We’d like some styles that can be applied to call-out boxes within the text. For the following:
- Info
- Tip
- Important
5. Tools
Tools we would like to use:
- Syntax Highlighter Evolved
- Edit Flow
Since there are about 45 people involved, it would be useful to have a P2 for this project. If not on .org I’ll set one up on .com
We acknowledged that there could be issues with code snippets and moving back and forth between the visual and text editors. Therefore we thought about turning off the visual editor.
We also discussed looking at https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-markdown/
6. Workflow
I provided an overview of the workflow and schedule. Everyone seemed happy enough with this. We agreed that we should have staged deadlines throughout the project. I will post about this later in the week.
7. Other issues
Duplicate content
We acknowledged that there could be issues with duplicate content. We discussed the possibility of delivering generic content with using an ajax link, however this would mean that content would have to be generic. In the end we decided to aim for a better reading experience for the user, rather than making content too generic. However, we should be aware of when content might be duplicated elsewhere and tag it as so.
Also, if content is similar – such as setting up SVN for plugins/themes/core, then if it is written in one place it can be used as the base for articles elsewhere.
Design
We would like to have a lovely design for the handbooks. The layout and formatting should be the same for each handbook, but each one should be its own colour.
Expect an update about workflow and schedule later this week.