By sandeep-1 on

Had set out to write this online book for Drupal developers Inside the Drupal Source but it is turning out to be a frustrating excersise! :(

The Drupal source is very dynamic so writting an offline book and putting it out was not the way to go. Therefore, I set out to write it online so that changes in the source can be reflected ASAP in the book. Here's why this is not working out:

Firstly everytime I write a page, there is this moderation waiting period before which it does not appear in the Documentation page. Would'nt the Wiki way be much better, of rollback'in to a previous version in case there are problems rather than having to moderate every post?

Secondly, every time I make changes to the Page, I cant see them in the Preview! I did see this bug report though today Book preview is bogus on drupal.org, so I guess this is getting fixed.

I started writting Chapter 1 and then later updated it as I was figuring out the code, but I cant see my updates! . BTW someone has posted this bug report Incorrect conf.php file may be selected in a multi-host environment that is related to what Im talking about in Chapter 1. If the page was moderated it would let the others in the community know the context of that bug report in detail.

Just want to let you guys know that here is someone who is trying to help out in his own way to make Drupal the best because he likes it a lot and has learned a lot from it :) but it has not been a fun experinece so far! :(

Comments

augustwest’s picture

augustwest commented

I don't have anything to say other than to keep at it. Just wanted you to know that work on Drupal documentation is needed and appreciated.

bertboerland’s picture

bertboerland commented

i was frustrated also by writing something which might or might not get published. so, dear drupal.org sysops. i do volunteer to go through all the books and submit or disapprove the changes, if you give me enough rights.

giving more feedback to the writers encourages them to write more.
--
groets

bertb

--
groets
bert boerland

JonBob’s picture

JonBob commented

It seems to me the problem is not so much having the manpower to approve content as it is improving feedback in the submissions process. There are currently no items in the approval queue; I try to go through it every couple days, and there are never more than one or two items to review. I believe bug reports have been filed for the major usability problems here, which are:

  • There is no indication that your changes need to be reviewed before submission.
  • The queue is squirreled away in the admin pages; there should be a block that screams at the admins, "Please review this!"
  • Preview is wonky when making changes to existing pages.
  • There is no readily apparent way to view the status of items you have submitted for approval.
cel4145’s picture

cel4145 commented

"The queue is squirreled away in the admin pages; there should be a block that screams at the admins, 'Please review this!'"

I suggested a while back that it would be useful to have a waiting admin approval block for story submissions. Seems like there's a general need for this for all content types awaiting admin approval. I came to Drupal via PostNuke which has a block that appears to admins whenever new content is available. Very useful.

Kobus posted some code for Drupal 4.1 at the above link which should should be useful.