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

6 points by chunkyslink ↗ HN
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.

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.

2 comments

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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).

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.