GH users to "Give Back"

I love the GH discussion forum for finding answers to in depth questions however, a traditional help document (F1) would be more effective at times, particularly for beginners. I also am well aware that the reason there is not a traditional help document for GH is largely an economic one. Since GH is currently free and continues to change (read: improve) it is difficult to expend the additional energy necessary to generate (and keep current) a help document. I must say I agree with the McNeel decision to put all their available capital energy into advancing the functionality of GH rather than spending it on creating a help system.

However, I have an idea that could benefit GH, its users, as well as its developer, in a major way. Is there a way for the users of GH to "give back" to GH by producing an open source help document. Surely there is some internet tool that would enable the users to easily draft and edit a help document. Something similar to wikipedia with edit-ability. The idea is for each GH user to pick a single component to research; i.e., create examples of, document syntax requirements, explain the components uses, and link to relevant discussion forum articles.

With as many users as there are, it seems like no one would have to do too much. If everyone did just a small portion, the help document would get done. Then over time it could be refined over time by the same community. I am not sure how to organize such an effort. Does anyone have any thoughts about the viability of a community written help document? Has it been done before? Are there any online tools particularly suited to producing a help document format that would facilitate the logistic of a project like this? Does anyone else see a need for a traditional help document?

Stan

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Martin Dembski on September 12, 2011 at 6:44am

Hi,

I think this is a greate idea.

And the composition by tabs and sub categories also sounds logic, but is it easy to change something in this more or less static structure, when in a new Grasshopper release also something is changing?

Best,

Martin.

Permalink Reply by Ángel Linares on September 11, 2011 at 5:35am

Hi!...anyone there?...:( We always leave this topic forgotten...and is a pity.

Permalink Reply by Luis Fraguada on September 11, 2011 at 6:53am

I was given login information for that page on the mcneel website, but I am not sure this is what we want. We are not asking for a few people to update this, we would like to have something that many could contribute to (of course, adding to the level of administration needed to organize it). I have replied with a similar message to see how we can work out an access system that makes sense for what we want to do.

Permalink Reply by Ángel Linares on September 11, 2011 at 10:38am

That's clearly the first step into this. Perhaps we need some kind of mediawiki public page runing for everyone that have a Rhino license. School and Edu license are a problem here but I suppose that mcneel will be able to deal with.

I've try to get login into the page you post but I can't (I suppose that everyone needs an account approved by Mcneel). This is a hard work that needs a lot of people writting and creating information there.

Waiting news! ;)

Permalink Reply by Stan Carroll on September 11, 2011 at 11:40am

I am sorry I have been quiet. It is not a sign of apathy, but only a sign of NOT having enough community web knowledge to organize such an effort. It seems it might be useful to define the needs and desires we (the community) would want for such a help system. As an old school architect, I feel compelled to first break down and define what the problem is prior to solving it.

Luis,

You and Angel sound like you may have a concrete idea of how we might proceed. I offer the following description of the programmatic requirements of the organizational system in hopes it might help to define how to get going. These thoughts only suggest the beginning of a discussion to yield a pragmatically useful process for the implementation of the GH help document.

Important aspects of the online compilation mechanism are:

Allows a large community to contribute in a self actuating manner.

Well organized tree structure.

Ongoing accessibility

Editable

Examples, descriptions, and explanations

Links for file downloads/uploads

Both graphic and text representations.

Able to be Monitored by an administrator

Easily searchable

GH Context responsiveness

Accessible directly from GH (F1)

Contain direct links to existing forum discussions and online tutorials

Low or No Cost web presents

Please be critically rigorous to cull or expand this list. I hope this is worthwhile compilation.

Stan

Permalink Reply by Daniel Kautz on September 11, 2011 at 12:49pm

It should additionally be set up so that component help dialogue within grasshopper links to the community help/ elaboration on that specific component.

It would be a networked help/discussion tied into the interface.

We can try to also put in cross references to general topics/theory like list-matching from the specific components, specific help sections.

We should collectively make super simple example/demonstration tutorial grasshopper files with each help topic, so that people can see how each is supposed to work or can work, and the mechanics of the component in action.

Permalink Reply by Luis Fraguada on September 14, 2011 at 2:27am

Ok, seems the best way to begin would be to draft this structure and have a few people set it up on the web. After the structure is set, then perhaps it can be opened up to general edits and additions? In either case, everyone can make suggestions to this thread (or maybe we open up another once we have an initial structure). Who would want to access the wiki initially to set up the structure?

Permalink Reply by Ángel Linares on September 14, 2011 at 3:09am

I want it Luis. Could be nice to create another thread where people expose the proposals. At the beginning to many hands in the mix could be a mess.

I've seen that the software used at Mcneel is Dokuwiki (here is the syntax to use it: http://www.dokuwiki.org/syntax). If Mcneel have some base style-sheets could be nice base our build over it (perhaps the style sheet used at Rhino Labs because it mix download links, images, text explaning, etc). If there is no style-sheet then we have to start from scratch but is not problem.

Luis, what's the feedback you receive from Mcneel in this topic? Are they happy with the idea? are they going to support in some way this process?...only to understand wich our position before begining.

Best regards.

Permalink Reply by Stan Carroll on September 14, 2011 at 6:14am

I agree, too many hands at first is not good. I seems the quicker we can get to the point where volunteers can understand what exactly is involved to contribute, the better. Thank you Angel for taking the lead to get us started. Angel, I stand ready to help you in what ever capacity you think I might.

By the way, have you or Luis taken a look at the work that Chris Wilkins has done toward a help document. It is accessible from the link Luis put up a week or two ago in this thread, but for some reason I don't see it any more.

Stan

Permalink Reply by Stan Carroll on September 14, 2011 at 6:17am

Found it.

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/grasshopper-changes-so-much

Permalink Reply by Andy Payne on September 19, 2011 at 2:06pm

I wanted to weigh in on this topic, as the Grasshopper Primer that Rajaa Issa and I wrote is, as some have pointed out, quite outdated. I sometimes cringe with how outdated some parts are, but I'm hopeful that at least other new users get some use out of it. To be quite honest, I've started writing the 'Third Edition' of the Primer several different times... Going so far as to write roughly 75-100 pages each time (a complete re-write from the current version)... but every time I make some decent headway into an edition, the software changes quite a bit, and then I have to go back and change everything again. This isn't to say anything negative about change (it's why we're all here, as we're part of the evolution of this amazing tool)... it's just that perhaps a book format isn't always the best solution when things change so dramatically from month to month. Which is why I'm 100% behind the idea of a community driven online edition (ala wiki). I would be happy to share the 75 pages or so of the current version of the primer (totally new graphic layout and quite a few examples). It was up to date around GH version 0.8.0004 (roughly) so it's relatively new. But, has there been any feedback on how to get this wiki off the ground? It seemed logical that a select few of participants were going to do the work of setting up the infrastructure, but was this ever accomplished? Is there even a link, for the start of a wiki (I clicked on the link above, but it just takes me to a blank page that says Grasshopper Documentation... with nothing under it). Anyway, I'm not sure how much time I'll be able to contribute, give my time commitments, but I'd be happy to share all of the stuff I've started for the next edition of the Primer and hopefully add more stuff in the future.

Best,

Andy Payne

Permalink Reply by Luis Fraguada on September 19, 2011 at 2:21pm

Andy,

Great to have your thoughts on this. Indeed there has been some communication with Scott about this. Currently the system is by login. I have a login by virtue of writing to Scott. We would need a few more people to set up the structure. Angél Linareshas also joined the effort. If anyone else is interested in contributing to the wiki structure development, please make yourself heard!

The work you have done on the primers would be an excellent boost to the current development of the wiki. There are a lot of things you guys set up in those documents which will surely influence how things get explained. Let us know how we can make use of the existing 'third edition' content, and we will take it from there.

take care,

luis