[wp-docs] Drupal docs

[Lorelle VanFossen]

I've spent a little time lately going through the Drupal Handbooks 
examining how they do their documents layout.  I think we all need to 
review a lot of other online manuals to keep a good perspective on what 
the Codex has to offer. Remember, we are "promoting" the Codex as an 
"online manual" not a wiki, and this raises the bar on quality.

The breadcrumb system that connects the categorized documents at the top 
of the articles are nice, as are the clear changable menus on the left 
of the articles. The idea of adding a PayPal or other form asking for 
donations is also nice and something worth considering for the Codex. 
Cheaper than buying the book. ;-)

The new addition of categories to the Codex begins the process of 
connecting "breadcrumb" like navigation.

While some of the documentation is simple and clear, the usage of the 
handbooks as a forum for dialog with comments within the documentation 
adds clutter and opinions rather than facts.  I found that confusing and 
tedious to read through.  People would tell their stories and make 
excuses before getting to the point. The Codex works hard on eliminating 
the "stories" and getting readers to the point as fast as possible, 
keeping the manual feeling through much of the documentation. I think we 
should stay on track with that.

I really like the blue tones against the white page but the two sidebar 
add a lot of clutter. Viewed at 800x600, this page is a cluttered mass 
and difficult to read. Even with my new 19" monitor at a high 
resolution, the page still feels cluttered.  I think adding colors and 
navigation boxes to the Codex in the future is good, but I seriously 
recommen that we keep to a one sidebar look with the majority of 
emphasis on the content not the clutter.

I think we should start a discussion about how different online manuals 
look and work and begin to collect information and opinions on how to 
improve the Codex. We now have a good body of work, but there are still 
HUGE gaps in the documentation.  Per request from Matt and Carthik, I 
put together a "comparison" of one blogging software's table of contents 
against the Codex, which helped to generate a lot of the articles on the 
Codex:Tasks list and this needs to be worked on some more: 
http://codex.wordpress.org/User:Lorelle/Articles_Wanted

I also want to be clear, and speaking a little on behave of Carthik, 
that we need to continue the emphasis on the content, and slowly work on 
changing the look of the Codex. I think the best and possibly fastest 
change to the Codex would be replacing the sunflower with a WordPress 
logo of which there are some neat examples in the Codex Image Library 
that would work temporarily, and making the CSS changes requested last 
week of Matt.

What say you?

Lorelle