I feel help systems are important in any type of software, but especially in open source solutions. The more you can assist a user or developer learn how your software works, the more likely they are to use it or contribute to it, in some way. Unfortunately, most developers are too busy writing the software to spend a lot of time on user and developer guides. I hope to find a happy median in Clay.

While it may be a milestone or 2 down the road, I have been thinking a lot about how to set up a help system that is easy to setup, use, and edit without taking a lot of time away from development. If Clay is successful, then there will be applications, libraries, modules, etc released (or at least created) by 3rd parties, so we have to insure our help system accommodates those as well. Vaguely, I think a help system should provide a single point of contact for things like compiled user guides, form helpers, FAQs, overviews, and tutorials. It should also use permissions in a way that users can see what they need, but not have to sift through things they don’t have access to.

That’s just a few things I’ve been thinking about, in regard to the help system. It will be a little while before we’re ready to implement, but it doesn’t hurt to look ahead some.

Tags: Clay, Drawing Board, Help and Support

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Posted in Blog by David Dyess II No Comments Yet