[sakai2-tcc] Knowledge Base tool replacement for Online Help?

[Matthew Jones]

Short of retyping everything, I don't think there was any path that didn't
require a code conversion. The current KB code isn't compatible with
anything > 2.7.1 either, so it doesn't compile OOTB without some
modifications

The current help system uses XML definition files and separate i18n html
files. So you'd have to write something that would go through all these xml
files and either dump it into the database or use the api to add new items.

Some other limitations
- There's no way to import/export other that a database dump (which kind of
ties into this issue above) It seems like you'd really want to be able to
import help for a new tool, especially stuff like contrib tools, ideally
automatically. I'm guessing it would work with the current xml and html
files and autodiscover/import them if they're new (not previously added
modified, like if you just added evaluation or something)
- There's no support for i18n, that's on the future directions. It seems
like you'd need a separate column to indicate the language and some more
work to display only files in a particular language
- It looks like it uses SOLR (one per instance). The current path in Sakai
seems to use Elastic Search with possible optional setup for SOLR, so this
search would probably need to be rewritten

I don't know the effort required to get any of that fixed/implemented.
Maybe a week for the import/export/current help compatibility? A few days
for i18n? Not sure on search.

This solution would also have the problem of the help files getting out of
date between releases, even if we kept a central source up-to-date. People
would either have to wipe their changes from the db and re-apply their
customizations or update based on some diff we put out. This is a problem
with the current system too though.

The other alternative to this would be centrally hosted help, like one that
Sam wrote in Drupal. I think he had some mechanism for importing already,
not sure about export. I don't think it has any support for i18n other than
running multiple sites and it does do searching.

I'm not sure what would be better/faster for the community. I'm sure some
people would want to take what's there and have a way to customize it in
either case which could be an advantage for a built in tool like this if
these issues were addressed.



On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 3:35 PM, Steve Swinsburg
<steve.swinsburg at gmail.com>wrote:

> This looks really good. Any idea of the level of effort required to get
> existing help into this system?
>
> cheers,
> Steve
>
>
> On 08/03/2013, at 3:36 AM, Neal Caidin <nealcaidin at sakaifoundation.org>
> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> Edia has created a nice summary of their Knowledge Base tool at
> https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/HELP/Future+plans+for+The+Knowledge+Base+Tool
>
> This tool has potential for replacing the existing Sakai context sensitive
> Help system. The current online help system is not currently on a
> sustainable path and we need to figure out how to either update it or find
> a replacement.
>
> Take a look and see what you think.
>
> Thanks,
>
>  Neal Caidin
>
> Sakai CLE Community Coordinator
> nealcaidin at sakaifoundation.org
> Skype: nealkdin
> AIM: ncaidin at aol.com
>
>
>
>
>
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