Documentation

This sprint will be August 12 at 10 AM PDT (1 PM EDT, find your time) in the #drupal-docs IRC channel on the Freenode network.

Next Drupal 7 docs IRC meeting (freenode #drupal-docs) will be for one hour on Friday, August 14 at 2 pm EDT (18:00 GMT, 8pm CET, 11am PDT, find your time). We'll see where we are on updating the installation and upgrade guides, as well as touch base on the sprints that have been happening.

We need to schedule our next regular two week check in meeting to see where we are with D7 docs and what needs to be done for the next two weeks. The meeting will be one hour in #drupal-docs on IRC. Please state your preferences in the Doodle is here: http://www.doodle.com/pshnatexsfigavfx

This sprint will be on Thursday, August 6 from 7 - 9 pm EDT (find your time) in the #drupal-docs IRC channel on the Freenode network.

As part of the effort to make the Drupal 7 release the best ever, we are going to be doing core doc sprints during the month of August. This sprint will be on Tuesday, August 4 from 7 - 9 pm EDT (find your time) in the #drupal-docs IRC channel on the Freenode network.

The full IRC log for Friday's IRC meeting (July 31) is located here: http://pastebin.com/f3e11e1c3

The main two items that we covered are:
1) We need to review, test, and update if needed, the existing Upgrade and Installation guides, preferably by August 14. Richard (sillygwailo) volunteered to take on review of the upgrade guide. Emma got in touch with Andre (andremolnar) outside of the meeting and he agreed to help with the Upgrade guide review as well. There is an issue for this at http://drupal.org/node/536854.

We still need someone to step up and work on the Installation guide review. Please use the issue (http://drupal.org/node/538054) to indicate you are working on it and post comments/questions.

2) We need to help with core docs issues. There are two main lists right now to work on:
Core patches that need docs
Core issues in documentation component
We will begin having sprints to work on these. Emma (emmajane) has agreed to help mentor at sprints. We'd like to have at least 2 mentors at each sprint, and we can have them whenever mentors want to run them, convenient to them. Ideally we should have at least a handful during the month of August. The first sprints will be ideal times for people who want to learn to mentor, as well as just get work done. More on this will be coming in a followup post.

Let's keep the Drupal 7 docs on our radar. Next IRC meeting (freenode #drupal-docs) will be for one hour on Friday, July 31 at 2 pm EDT (18:00 GMT, 8pm CET, 11am PDT, find your time). We'll go over and continue to flesh out the overview list, as well as assign tasks to be done in the next two weeks.

At the Drupal 7 docs IRC meeting on July 10, we decided to have bi-weekly meetings to keep D7 docs on track. We will meet in #drupal-docs on Freenode for one hour. The Doodle to voice your date/time preferences is at http://www.doodle.com/zd4rn6mkdmc7friw

Sorry for the delay in getting this up. Here is the IRC log for the IRC meeting from July 10 where we discussed docs for Drupal 7: http://pastebin.com/f244a7fc2

Here is a short summary of the major points:

We will meet on IRC (#drupal-docs on Freenode) Friday, July 10 at 2 p.m. EDT (18:00 GMT, 11 a.m. PDT). This meeting is to start getting ourselves organized for Drupal 7 documentation. We need to determine what our minimum needs are for docs that will be ready on the day Drupal 7 launches (whenever that is) and at least a rough schedule to make sure we deliver on time. Code freeze is on September 1, 2009 and release will most likely be at least a few months after that.

One of the many pieces of feedback that Becca needs to help with redesigning our doc information architecture will be gathered through stakeholder interviews. Who are stakeholders? US! We need people who use (and maintain) the Drupal docs to help us with interviews, both as interviewers and interviewees. There is a sign up form to get involved.

Becca will provide more info on how it works, but basically we'll have a little script of questions to ask which you can use to chat in person or over Skype, etc. Record the interview (either in notes, audio or both) and then upload your results. It is a great way to get to know other community members while really helping to make our docs better. I have a bit more about this and some related things in a recent post on my blog (which went to the Planet a few days ago).

We need to start thinking out our plan for making sure that Drupal 7 has at least basic getting started documentation written when it is released. We'll meet for an hour in #drupal-docs on the Freenode network to talk about what we need to do and see if we can come up with some target dates.

Please fill out the Doodle by this Thursday, July 2, so we can set a time for the meeting.

This is a short summary of the IRC meeting we had on Tuesday, June 16 to discuss the new roadmap that was posted last week, http://drupal.org/node/488070. Lots of folks showed up and we had a god chat. Unfortunately we had to cut it off after an hour, but more meetings will be coming. You can get the full deal by reading the IRC transcript: http://pastebin.com/f4ee1b70f

The second article in my Drupal series for Adobe.com is out now. This article covers Drupal Themes, Dreamweaver tip(s) when working with Drupal, and shows off the Drupal Theme Starter desktop software.

"Understand the fundamentals of a Drupal theme and how Dreamweaver CS4 helps designers produce these themes."

Read the article now at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/drupal_themes_with_dwcs...

<a href="http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/drupal_themes_with_dwcs4.html

It has been a while since we have had an IRC meeting. I (削除) will be publishing (削除ここまで) published a doc "roadmap" of a plan on how to tackle some of the bigger doc issues sometime this week (June 7- 12). I'd like to give folks time to digest it and then have an IRC meeting next week (Tuesday, June 16) for people to discuss, raise questions, yell at me, help organize, etc. I'm setting this meeting time in advance rather than Doodle because I have a very intense travel schedule now and so only have narrow windows that I can set aside for this.

For over a year LA Drupal has been recording our meetings and many of our events. View the videos online... http://ladrupal.blip.tv

Subscribe to our video podcast... http://ladrupal.blip.tv/rss (available directly on iTunes too)

We provide these videos for free for people to learn Drupal of course. Over the next handful of weeks you will see us release videos from our meetings and DrupalCampLA '08. Learn the basics of Drupal, theme design, module development, advanced views, Services module (Flash + Drupal), and many, many more topics all relating to Drupal.

Follow us on twitter... https://twitter.com/ladrupal

I just saw my latest Drupal article is now published on Adobe.com, and this is the first in a series I have produced.

"Read on to see how you can set up a Drupal site in just 10 steps. Learn about adding content, altering menus, modules, and themes, and how to get your site ready for search engines and users."

Read the article now at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/drupal_site_in_10_steps...

People have spoken on when they can do a sprint and Advantage Labs has so graciously reserved us the conference room in the IATP building, so the Documentation Sprint is on June 20, 2009 from 10:00AM to 5:00PM!

Logistics

• Place: 2104 Stevens Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55404
• Day: June 20, 2009
• Time: 10AM to 5PM, feel free to come and go as you please. There is no reason you have to be there the whole time though it is encouraged.
• Who: Everyone! There is no skill level required. You just have to have a good attitude.

For May, let's do a spring cleanup in the issue queue. We did this challenge in January and got a lot of work done. I've set up IRC meeting times to jam on the queue for Sundays and Thursdays at 5 p.m. GMT (10 am PDT, 1pm EDT, 7pm CET).

A few weeks ago I put up a quick survey about Drupal docs. It was very "by-the-seat-of-my-pants" but I just wanted to start getting a feel for where people are coming from and give the community an opportunity to talk about docs. It wasn't scientific and it wasn't even a "good" survey. I am definitely not a survey expert. Luckily some folks have volunteered to help me make future surveys better, but I'm still happy with what I learned from this one. I wanted to share some basic stuff that I found interesting from the responses.