Xataface Forums

There seems to be references to docs that I dont find on my list. Also a lot of times when I click something like recent changes I get a statement saying I do not have access rights.

Thus I am curious if there is something I am missing?

Also there are some things, for instance the Widget types? that are offered under QuickForms but that are not documented in the Dataface stuff Ive read. And finding info on quickforms in a human readable format, (without lots of references to other pear classes) seems to be difficult.

Any possibility in the future of a dataface manual? (Hopefully in HTML..but PDF would be fine also...) I'd be willing to pay for the thing..

Holler.

>I click something like recent changes I get a statement saying I do not have access rights.

I am currently documenting 0.6 and its new features, but have not published it yet. These are the documents that are showing up in recent changes. When they are published they will be available.

>Also there are some things, for instance the Widget types? that are offered
>under QuickForms but that are not documented in the Dataface stuff Ive read.

There are widgets available for QuickForms that are not yet documented in Dataface. That means that they may or may not work properly in Dataface. Sometimes a widget is more complex and requires some special handling by dataface, so its availability in QuickForm would not imply that it works in Dataface. For example, the HeirSelect widget that allows users to select a value in one select list that will affect the options in a second select list, would require a little bit of plumbing to get it working in Dataface. In theory you would be able to make ANY widget work by customizing some of the methods in the delegate classes, but I haven't had a chance to sit downn and write a tutorial on how this would be done. Alternatively, if you see a widget that you would like to have added, just add it as a feature request in the bug tracker, and I may be able to get around to adding it.


>Any possibility in the future of a dataface manual?
Certainly. The rough roadmap that I forsee as far as documentation goes is:
1. Tutorial based documentation for all key features and procedures
2. Reference documentation for the available configuration options
3. API Documentation with examples
4. Manual - to contain all of the above.

It is important to move the project into a position where the community can feasibly contribute. Dataface 0.6 adds a significant amount of improvements in this area by increasing the modularity of code (e.g. If you want to add a special search action, you can - without having to change any existing code, etc...). More and better documentation will also help this to progress. For the API docs, I forsee a system similar to PHP.net where users can contribute their own comments and snippets to the manual pages. And, most importantly, I hope to keep the *need* for documentation to a minimum, by making it "intuitive". No steep learning curves

Best regards

Steve