Articles HowTo ?

Hi,

I perhaps might be interrested (in the future) to spend some time on an article (or series of articles) for aros.

In (very early) preperation of that, i'm in the process of deciding to start a blog (or something similar), doing it in a offline form (like pdf/html or something similar) uploading it for others to download or using an excisting infrastructure (like aw.org).

In that regard, feel free to make any suggestion at all :)

I seem to remember, before this board went up again, that there were some articles available, but for the life of me i cannot remember how they looked like.

Also i could not find anything related on this site like a HowTo or a FAQ concerning articles.

So, i have a few questions concerning making articles on aw.org:
- is any registered user of aw.org allowed to make/start an article or does one have to apply/get clearance for it somewhere first ?
- I noticed the board is using php-fusion. I looked overthere already but could not find anything similar like this board. I would like to have a (renewed) impression on how an article would look like in practise. Any available sites that somebody know of that could give me an fairly good impression (in relation to aw.org) ?
Also, i got a bit lost at the fusion site as the documents i looked at/found seems to be more orientated towards setting up a site (which i do not care of).
- What would be the format in which an article need to be written ? I have not a clue as of what is possible/allowed or not. Think along the way of (embedded) pictures, tables, paragraphs, lists etc. Is there perhaps a manual somewhere or does it simply requires just plain html ?
- In relation to the above question, could i write an article offline and post/upload it as an article online so it could be avoided to do a manual conversion ?
- Does the article(engine) supports automatic highlighting of source-code like c, pascal, amiga E, arexx, etc. ?
- Are there any restrictions on an article. Like length/size ? Is it possible to do a series of articles (linked toghether) ? Is an article more along the way like a chapter ?
- Is it possible for (other) users to respond to an article. Could the article be re-edited to reflect f.e. user comments -> think along he way of a FAQ that needs to be updated often.
- Is it possible to attach e.g. example files to an article or does that requires external storage space ?

My preference would be that i could edit offline (leaving more choices for me available as where and how to publish), somehow get it to be uploaded without requiring manual conversion and ofcourse support for (automatic) source-code highlighting.
It would be nice if this could be managed using aros, but i settle for tools i have experience with under windblows.


In short, too many questions (and i probably forgot to write down most of them ) :)


Thanks in advance for any replies.

regards,

The best person to answer your technical questions would be Amigamia. I'm surprised he hasn't responded yet. Also Saimon69, could give you good information too. Saimon69 wrote many of the articles that used to be here. But mostly they were reprinted from his blog binarydoodles. If you want to check them out.

http://binarydoodles.ilcannocchiale.it/


If you are going to have snippets of code in your articles, Imo, it would be better for the reader to be able to cut and paste it, than to deal with tags for color highlighting.

As a reader, html is great for something I will skim through once, especially if there are be many links or ads. But if an article is something I might want to review for future reference, then I would also have a pdf file to download. That way I won't forget where I found the article, or add yet another bookmark, or wonder about a dead link. Just my 2 cents.

From your posts, it seems that you have a wide range of interests. I'm curious about the subject matter of these articles. I look forward to seeing them.

Ps - If you enjoy writing and don't mind a little volunteer work. Aros has the perfect job for you. Take a look at the Aros homepage

http://aros.sourceforge.net/

There are so few updates, people who go there sometimes get the impression that Aros is no longer active. A short news article every couple of months would make a big difference.

If interested, Saimon69 can answer questions, or 4play at Aros-Exec.

Hi Magorium,

Articles used to be part of this board but since I had to rebuild all from scratch, I haven't focused on the articles yet. I am glad you are showing interest in this section and to answer your questions, I am going to reactivate it. Right now, there is no category to write articles. So what I'll do, I'll just create an AROS generic category and give you rights to write in there. You can copy and paste in the text field but I think you can write off line as long as it is in RTF format. I'll PM you when I have the category ready and your rights setup accordingly.

:)

@caveman:


I was not really surprised as he seems a bit busy lately ;)

Thank you for the link you posted, it was very helpfull. :)



Indeed, if it would work that way. On other (programing) boards i post, the actual posted text in not tagged at all (only with a code tag). The content manager knows about the code/tag discovers the programming language automatically and so the actual pasted source was not adjusted at all. It is just displayed as highlighted/colorized to the user who reads it. But again, i do not know how it works here, so i probably have to find out myself ;)

btw your 2 cents about the format i should concider where very helpfull. In that regard we think alike ;) I also like offline reading for reference material.


well, i have all kinds of interrests but initially it would be to benefit myself ;) I'm getting fed-up with repeating myself over and over again. so writing it all down should benefit me, so i can write RTFM :D

in your other post you wrote:

Yes i know this :) I started translating some message in my native tongue. Because i lack knowledge i thought it was a good idea to translate each new article and at the same time translate 1 older article so eventually all news overthere got translated Ihelping me in the process to understand aros internals and history a little). Well.. this happened once uptil now :D

I have no problem with doing something like you proposed and perhaps i will (seriously) look into it. But it needs a little update first to take on such an endevour as a lot of things (which i mostly alread forgot again O-o) changed since the last post. Also english is not my native tongue and when translating i realized my english is not sufficient enough.

I agree with the bad impression it leaves for newcomers on aros.org.
But i believe something is in the pipeline of changing the site etc. I think it is wise to see what happens first.

Thank you for your time and opinion(s) :appreciated:

@amigamia:
When i find myself some time i will look into it. Thank you very much for setting things up. I did not know about the rtf part -> very interresting. I really need to get myself a good editor first or try my existing ones to see if that will work in conjunction with the board.

In that regard: am i able to undo (my own) screw-ups ? :D

regards,

@magorium,



I do not know much about web pages or the code tag. Thanks for the info.



It is a good Idea to write an article to avoid repeating the same thing again and again. But keep in mind that Paolone has written an Icaros manual, and unfortunately he has to ask people to read it again and again :|



If you decide to try your hand at the Aros homepage. A little will go a long way. The home page is not the history of Aros. So you don't have to mention all the events since the last report (unless you want to). But there have been some recent major news items that should have been posted by now. And also your english skills are good enough, but if you have doubts, you can have someone review your text.



What do you know? Let the cat out of the bag :D

@cavemann



Here is just a random board that popped up on searching for the code-tag. They do a much better job explaining then i do :D

* as a late reply -> Well well, will you look at this :D



You welcome :)


Indeed, and i think it is a real shame. paolo put in so much effort to get all things right, taking the reader practically by the hand. So wouldn't it be nice to just answer RTFM ? ;)

But on a more serious note: Since aros is getting more and more attention the Aros community (unfortunately?) also see more and more people popping up on the boards with absolutely no clue at all (not that i have for that matter).

I have seen complete boards/projects go down the drain due to their own succes, not being able to keep up with the nonsense that comes along with it.
When that time comes, i like to be ready for it :D


I do agree on everything you said there, although i personally would like to mention everything (tis the least that can be done for the efforts of the devs)


hehe. Did you read our wiki our wiki lately ? Not saying that it will ever come to this examples or this is something that "the powers that be" envisioned but you can get a hint (on how it could look like) by looking at this, this, this or this (btw a complete list can be found here) ;)

regards,

P.S. hmz we seem to get a bit off-topic here :S