Not dead yet...

[Kevin H]

Despite the long hiatus, the Docudo project is not yet dead.

When the Turbogears web presence changed hosting providers in November
or December of last year, the Docudo sites (www.docudo.org,
svn.docudo.org, trac.docudo.org) were never put back up. This has
recently (within the last month or so...since just after PyCon) been
rectified. Mostly, anyways...there still isn't anything useful up at
www.docudo.org, just a quickstarted TG project.

At any rate, here's a quick rundown of the current status of Docudo
and some notes for where I think is should go in the future.

CURRENT STATUS
==============
- most basic functionality is done, users can add, modify, etc.
documents
- Table of Contents manager works
- basic full-text search engine is working
- basic install script to set up repository and/or database (currently
only works on Linux/Unix
IIRC)
-

FUTURE
======
- code cleanup to make document/page/file terminology fully consistent
- likewise clean up version/revision terminology
- general code cleanup (the are some #TODOs in there, I think)
- fix the hacky way the "/current/" alias is currently implemented
(100% my fault)
- perhaps expand the concept of aliasing a collection to be more
general/user-configurable?
- need a better admin interface, with ability to transition docs
between versions
- should we include the ability to support multiple document
collections in a single Docudo instance?
- what about more/better I18N support and/or tools to help docs
translators?
- replace the current basic text search with TurboLucene?
- better export capabilities targetting multiple formats...single-page
HTML, multipage HTML, PDF, PS, CHM, etc. and ability to make a gzipped
(or bzipped) tarball of each format
- use TG scheduler to automate creation of exports and/or perform
other tasks?
- need to integrate with API-docs and possibly a middle-ground type of
docs, like man pages, etc. (see:
http://www.goer.org/Journal/2006/08/why_oh_why_does_documentation_software_suck.html)
- need to investigate integration with http://docs.pythonweb.org
- may need to further "widgetify" view code...I can't remember how far
this process got.
- some kind of interface to look at previous revisions (with diffs) of
the same document/file
- any other suggestions?

I'm sure there's plenty I've forgotten to list, but that will have to
do for now.

Obviously this is a lot of work, and I haven't seen anyone from the
old crew around lately...so if you're interested in helping out (or
even just want to kibbitz), please post to this list! We have lots
for you to do!

Kevin Horn

[John Lavoie]

Kevin,

I pulled down the source from svn a few weeks ago when you got it back
up. I had a *really* hard time getting Docudo installed and running.
Granted, a large part was in installing/compiling pysvn, but it was also
because it was a <1.0 TG project. After I got all of those problems
solved, I tried creating a page under /1.0 and it didn't like my
repository settings so I gave up.

All I wanted to do was get the project up and running so I could check
it out with my own eyes. Are there plans to get it running on the
docudo.org site?

Finally, I'm a database guy at heart. I don't really get what Docudo is
trying to do with svn version control.

John

[Kevin Horn]

replies inline...

On 3/28/07, John Lavoie <tromb...@galuvian.net> wrote:

Kevin,

I pulled down the source from svn a few weeks ago when you got it back
up.  I had a *really* hard time getting Docudo installed and running.
Granted, a large part was in installing/compiling pysvn, but it was also
because it was a <1.0 TG project.   After I got all of those problems
solved, I tried creating a page under /1.0 and it didn't like my
repository settings so I gave up.

I'll see what I can do about that.  I seem to remember getting it running under 1.0, but I was using a working copy, so it may have had some changes in it.  It's also possible that I'm using an older copy of pysvn.

I'll try getting a fresh copy of the source running properly.

Also keep in mind that you can turn the SVN version control part off, and just use a file store, though I don't think that's documented anywhere except in an old ML message (by Joel Pearson? IIRC).

Ah, here it is: http://groups.google.com/group/docudo/browse_thread/thread/8d2419f9e373fa79/a4ba90b8438c0527#a4ba90b8438c0527

It's in that thread.
 

All I wanted to do was get the project up and running so I could check
it out with my own eyes.  Are there plans to get it running on the
docudo.org site?

Yes, I am planning to get it going under www.docudo.org , but I haven't managed to make the time yet.  Hopefully tonight or in the next day or so.
 

Finally, I'm a database guy at heart.  I don't really get what Docudo is
trying to do with svn version control.

The idea was to have full revision control for free with SVN (don't reinvent the wheel), while also having the ability to allow people to make direct SVN commits to edit the docs.
 

John

Thanks for the feedback!  Hope to hear more of the same!

Kevin Horn

[Kevin Horn]

John,

Apparently you are correct...things are considerably more borked up than I had thought.

Looks like the major refactoring of the code I was considering may be a lot more urgent than I had thought. :(

Anyways, thanks for bringing this to light.

Kevin Horn

[John Lavoie]

I created a blank 1.0.1 TG project and copied over the Docudo specific
things, and it was able to start up. It failed to create an actual
Docudo document though... I can send you the files if you're interested.

Kevin Horn wrote:
> John,
>
> Apparently you are correct...things are considerably more borked up
> than I had thought.
>
> Looks like the major refactoring of the code I was considering may be
> a lot more urgent than I had thought. :(
>
> Anyways, thanks for bringing this to light.
>
> Kevin Horn
>

> On 3/28/07, *Kevin Horn* < kevin...@gmail.com

> <mailto:kevin...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> replies inline...
>

> On 3/28/07, *John Lavoie* <tromb...@galuvian.net

> docudo.org <http://docudo.org> site?

>
>
> Yes, I am planning to get it going under www.docudo.org

> <http://www.docudo.org>, but I haven't managed to make the time

[Kevin Horn]

Thanks, John, but I made a commit to svn (rev 113) that should fix most things.
Please try it out!  Let me know if you find any more broken bits.

I recommend using a local repository in the Docudo project directory.  You may have to do some fiddling to get everything set up correctly, but I was able to get Docudo running and create a couple of documents in the collection.

I may try another "from scratch" setup soon to make sure the "official" setup process (from the README) works properly.

CURRENT KNOWN PROBLEMS
=================
* title index is broken
* in popup window that results from clicking on "Add this page to table of content" link, the browse button is broken
version is not defined (toc.js: line 78)
[Break on this error] var url = '/'+ version +'/docudo.pages?select=1';
* when creating new user: when pressing the submit button on the new user form:
TypeError: User.set() got an unexpected keyword argument editor
* TODO: admin piece for comments
* indexing admin broken

Kevin Horn

[Kevin Horn]

On 3/29/07, Kevin Horn <kevin...@gmail.com> wrote:

CURRENT KNOWN PROBLEMS
=================
* title index is broken

For future reference, the title index was broken in my version because my collection repository was missing the "docudo.media" subdirectory.

Now logged as Trac ticket #15: http://trac.docudo.org/ticket/15

Kevin Horn