I have a web application that has grown to a point where I want to provide end user documentation/help on how to use it and all of its features.

My inclination is to use tools I already know to accomplish this (wiki), but wanted to get others advice on the best way to go.

Anyone tackled this task before? Is wiki the way to go? if so what free wiki would you recommend (dokuwiki?) Is there some better open source help system? (that mimics google help for example)

I want to start out with not allowing others to edit my documentation, but am not apposed to it in the future.

my only requirements are a good built in search capability and Free. It would be nice to have a built in faq engine...

thx in advance.

4/16/2009 9:55:01 AM

i like mediawiki

4/16/2009 9:56:55 AM

if you're used to using a wiki I'd go with that. It has the added bonus of letting your customers do documentation for you.

4/16/2009 10:16:17 AM

dokuwiki is a good one because its relatively simple, easy to setup.

if you are consdering a ticket system also for support requests then you could look at kayako esupport suite. it includes a knowledgebase system integrated with ticket system. you can set it up so that when someone submits a question, the system will automatically try to suggest relevant knowledgebase articles before finalizing the ticket.

4/16/2009 10:42:11 AM

^ that looks cool, but at this point its gotta be free..

4/16/2009 11:45:57 AM

Quote :

"i like mediawiki"

4/16/2009 12:58:33 PM

Quote :

""i like mediawiki""

plus there are so many extensions out for it now that you can basically make it do what you want

4/16/2009 1:02:18 PM

I love mediawiki

4/16/2009 4:02:08 PM

man maybe its just me but I dont think media wiki is that intuitive. I've never used it from the admin side but have from the consumer side. I know wikipedia uses it, so its gotta be solid - but i've never been a fan from a usability standpoint. Maybe if i use a different theme it will better fit my documentation needs.

I do like that its db driven vs flat file dokuwiki

thx all for the advice. I'll give it a try.

4/16/2009 4:43:11 PM

ok installed mediawiki - is there a web interface (or plugin) to manage/modify LocalSettings.php? having to edit manually all the time is a pain...

4/16/2009 5:27:53 PM

share point if you want source control on the docs and want the docs to be portable, mediawiki otherwise

4/16/2009 5:41:12 PM

doxygen for creating API references.

I always liked PHP's online docs with the little forum at the bottom of each page. My first choice would not be wiki for this. I would only want users to be able to post comments at the bottom. I would only let developers edit the actual reference material.

4/16/2009 7:54:08 PM

^^^nope, that would create a pretty significant security risk, imo.

you shouldn't need to edit it very much once you get everything set up the way you want it. it's also really not that difficult to edit in the first place.

4/16/2009 8:24:10 PM

^^don't need developer api doc - already got this. This is non-techy documentation for the end users of my product.

I think I'm gonna give mediawiki a try after messing around with it a bit. I want to do contextual help (so from page on my product they can click help and it will bring them to a help page specific to where they are at). I think wiki will accomplish this best with the namespaces and all...

4/17/2009 10:55:50 AM

Wikis are pretty good for content that is updated in a relatively static / non-synchronous manner. They suck when content is updated frequently / dynamically and the end-users are dependent on those updates to be able to do their work. (e.g. A multi-author document should not be done on a wiki. However, the documentation system you are after certainly is a good possibility in the future).

If you DO have a requirement to have this capability in the future, may want to look up "web content management systems". smoothcrim mentioned SharePoint, which is one of the best, but isn't free. Others are available.

Go with mediaWiki. Be forewarned, Confluence does NOT scale well.

[Edited on April 19, 2009 at 8:28 AM. Reason : .]

4/19/2009 8:27:51 AM

i hate it when a program uses a wiki as documentation, but the developer hasn't actually populated the wiki with useful information, assuming the users will just fill it in for them..... lazy

4/19/2009 8:31:15 AM

what does http://www.php.net use for their online documentation anyway? Is it something publicly available? It's easily the best code documentation site i've used.

4/19/2009 9:28:14 AM

^ looks to be their own concoction called phpweb

4/19/2009 10:35:27 AM

javadoc is pretty sweet too

4/19/2009 10:41:15 AM