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Subject:Re: Need advice on a documentation system From:David Neeley <dbneeley -at- gmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 27 Jul 2005 11:49:34 -0500
Kelly,
Xoops with winimod is simply an open source site/portal content
management system with a wiki module (wini). There are *many* of
these.
In fact, there is a highly useful site that allows you to try many of
these systems for yourself. It also has a CMS Matrix feature that
allows you to compare features of various of them at once: http://www.opensourcecms.com
Because they automatically delete and reinstall these systems every
few hours, you can sign in with administrator privileges to get a
thorough look at how each one works without worry about doing some
sort of damage to the system.
Note, though, that the comparison also includes features from many
proprietary systems, too.
Some of these have workflow tracking features you might also find
extremely helpful, as one feature to look for.
A very useful feature of the matrix is that it gives an exhaustive
list of features that you can use as a yardstick for tool
selection--many of which you probably would not think to inquire about
until you had spent considerable time with one of the systems, only to
discover you had irresolvable issues leading to a great deal of wasted
time and effort.
As for version control--I worked at one place that used SourceSafe for
docs. I would not want to do so again if I could avoid it. By
contrast, the CMS systems often use a database for version control and
do so in a manner that is very easy to use and to administer.
With your situation, I daresay that a few hours on that site would be
time extremely well spent.
David
On 7/27/05, W. Kelly Oja <judbasiner -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
> Hey Whirlers,
>
> I just finished an informal meeting where I was asked for my input on
> what was described as a documentation system. Basically, I was shown
> some prelim stuff from xoops.org and a module called wiwi (please no
> jokes).
>
> The needs as told to me are:
>
> Multiple people have access to document on server
> Write to PDF with proper formatting
> Content formatting
> Headers & footers
> Broken down inot sections and/or individual pages
> Revision control
> Works like wiwi but more robust (more powerful)
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