[TxMt] TM Documentation & RubyOnRails == Your time to help, please !!

[Mats Persson]

OK, considering the number of RoR users using TM and on this list, I  
am throwing this whole thing out to the community to help and assist  
with.

Over the past few weeks I've been working on the TM documentation  
site (90% done), and has hacked a version of Hieraki to handle it.   
I've done a variety of changes even though I'm a RoR newbie, but now  
I'm a bit fed up with my limitations, and the time it takes for me -  
as a newbie - to do the stuff. It's a good learning ground, but I'm  
also completely out of time for doing this stuff, so I am hoping that  
others are willing to help out as well.

Outstanding issues & problems:

1.    Routing & URLs issues

This is 90% done, and the documentation now handles human readable  
URL's like these:
     a.    URL:      site.com/chaptertitle/
     b.    URL:      site.com/chaptertitle/pagetitle/
     c.    URL:      site.com/chaptertitle/subchaptertitle/
     d.    URL:      site.com/chaptertitle/subchaptertitle/pagetitle/

Translated into TM doc's speek:

if we have a chapter called "Appendices" and a subchapter called  
"RegExp" and then a page called "Overview" then the url becomes   
site.com/appendices/regexp/overview/

The outstanding issues here are:
-- not all links are working fully/correctly
-- there's too many hacks in the code,
-- too much repeated code
-- may have issues in it that I've not thought off


2.    Support for Markdown within Hieraki.

Allan prefers to work with Markdown code, and Hieraki does only  
support Textile at the moment. I and many others (?) prefer Textile  
so ideally the system should cater to both.


3.    User comments System

Having the ability for user's to easily comment on existing  
documentation is in my mind fundamental to good documentation, and  
that's why I'm hoping for this feature to be added as soon as possible.


The following two points are more important really and are stuff that  
I can't possibly do, so they really do need someone else to help out  
with.

4.    Code Checking

As a newbie, I'm sure to have done some bad stuff, so it needs  
someone more knowledgeable to look through the code and confirming  
it's solid & efficient.


5.    Installation on Allan's TextDrive a/c and setting up issues.



You can see a basic working version - minus some of the latest  
changes - on this URL:  [ www.imediatec.co.uk/tmdocs/ ]

I have it all in a SVN a/c on TextDrive, so I can easily open it up  
for you to work on and commit your changes to.

So please take some time to help out !!

Worst come worst, I'd be grateful IF I could just have a few people  
to ask for help from as and when I need it. Yes, I'm on the RoR IRC  
and ML, and although I've been helped there, it's not always  
convenient and fast.

OK, I'm sure some of you will say "why a hacked version of Hieraki ?  
Why not ....?" and so on.  Hieraki did the vast majority of what was  
needed, but had some limitations, like no single page display (done),  
no search (done) and it was easy to make it look and work like the  
new design style of the Macromates site (due to be public later on  
this year).


Kind regards,

Mats

----
"TextMate, coding with an incredible sense of joy and ease"
- www.macromates.com -