This Wiki is a collaboration effort of FrontAccounting community to document the FrontAccounting ERP application. You are always welcome to make FA documentation better. Our wiki is powered by PmWiki engine. If you are not familiar with this type of wiki or you simply want to make some tests before start feel free to use Wiki sandbox for this.

FrontAccounting wiki structure.

All content on our wiki (beside some administration pages) is available for readers without prior registration or login. To gain rights to change wiki content and add new information you have to be registered FA forum member.

Our wiki contains a couple of areas grouping pages with various content:

  1. Main - is main group of pages. Feel free to add any information in current pages or create new one.
  2. Help - this group of pages is used as context help in FrontAccounting application, therefore creation of new pages in this group is reserved for administration staff only. Content can be changed by all registered users.
  3. Devel - contains all stuff interesting for people who want to be involved in development process, or simply are curious about the application internals. This is also the best place to announce and discuss planned FA extensions and improvements. Edition access to development area is constrained to development team and forum users in Senior Member group. If you feel you need to have edition rights in this area do not hesitate to contact forum admins to update your status regardless of your actual forum activity.

FrontAccounting wiki and forum login systems are integrated together, so you can login once in one of these areas to appear as an active user in both. Also logging out in any place will do it for both the forum and wiki.

FA wiki supports multilingual content, although english is default wiki language and should always be used in page content. You can select your preferred language by selector included in page header. If currently displayed page contains no content section for selected language, the the default one (english) is displayed.

To help create multilingual content with consistent appearance, FA wiki has set of templates used for various types of content. When you start new page, or try to edit old one which does not contain section for your preferred (currently selected) language, wiki adds content template at the end of file. Wiki templates are not editable for wiki users, so if you have any idea how to improve them, or simply you want to start new language support in FA wiki please contact administration staff.

Base edition rules

These are the broad guidelines used for writing documentation pages for FrontAccounting.

  • Use simple markup for documentation. (KISS)
  • Don't rely on WikiWord? links; to link to other pages use [[Wiki Word]].
  • Mark incomplete pages or documents needing review with category? marker [[!Documentation To Do]] or [[!Fix me]] near a part of text needing work.
  • Use http://example.com/ as the prefix for example URLs. [1]
  • Use example names for values in code examples, like GroupName, PageName, label=Search.
  • Use ->[@ or -->[@ to indent code examples.
  • Place any documentation-specific styles in PmWiki:Group Header.
  • Don't use table markups for things other than tables.
  • Use the (:keywords:) markup to provide keywords to assist with searches.
  • Indicate the intended audience and difficulty level of your documentation.
  • Use headings !! and !!! to divide your page into manageable "chunks". Use "sentence capitalization" for headings (capitalize only the first letter of the heading and any proper names).
  • Use "newspaper-style" writing where possible. Facts first. Story later. Punchy. (See below)
  • Do not "sign" documentation unless it is a personal opinion you don't want changed.
  • To ensure correct language dependent link titles over the wiki always use (:title-xx title of page:) markup for translated pages. Do not add it if the page is not translated to given language at all to not confuse other readers.

Details

Many of the quick points above need no further explanation, but the items below provide more details and "how to" information.

KISS (Keep It Short & Simple)

Keep the markup in the documentation simple. The PmWiki documentation is a self-demonstration of what can be done with wiki markup, and like any collaborative document it needs to be accessible to many authors. It's important for the markup to be readable - not just the rendered output.

How to indicate audiences and document difficulty level

Indicated audiences are not intended to be exclusive or constraining; they just provide a convenient way for a user to decide what is relevant to them. And, of course, a convenient way for authors to indicate who their docs are intended for.

  • The keywords for audiences are readers, authors, admins (and all for all three)
  • The keywords for difficulty levels are basic, intermediate, advanced.

There is no direct relation between the audience and the level - audience classifies the individuals accessing the wiki, while level indicates the relative difficulty of the material.

Suggested markup (near or at the top of the page): 

(:Audience: readers, authors (basic):)

Suggested markup (in the page): 

%audience% readers, authors (intermediate)

readers, authors (intermediate)

How to provide keywords to assist with searches

Use this markup:

(:keywords word, ...:)

Example for this page:

(:keywords Documentation Guidelines, Documentation, Howto Document:)

Add keywords before any visible content on the page.

How to make sure links work

Not every page that is in the PmWiki group here or on pmwiki.org ends up in the distribution. Beware of creating links to non-distributed pages.

  • Use either [[FaWiki:Page Name]] markup for links to pages that may not be included in the FA wiki distribution.
  • Don't rely on WikiWord links, use [[Wiki Word]] markup.Not every wiki has WikiWords? enabled, so when writing documentation if a WikiWord is intended to link to another page then enclose it in double brackets as [[Wiki Word]]. Not every occurrence of a WikiWord needs to be a link -- generally just the first is sufficient.

Use headings for information "chunking"

A long page of unbroken text can discourage readers. Use headings to break your page into sensible chunks. Headings allow readers to quickly find the information they are seeking.

Use "newspaper-style" writing where possible

In "newspaper-style" writing, you tell the whole story right at the start and then elaborate on the details later. This allows readers to get a quick appreciation of the subject at hand - and for many, that will be enough. Anyone looking for more discussion or examples reads further to find them. In newspapers, the whole story is usually told in the first paragraph. Newspapers use short sentences. The sentences are "punchy".

Do not "sign" documentation

FA wiki makes it very easy to "sign" your contributions by inserting ~~~ in the edit window. Signing is appropriate when you are posing questions or expressing a personal opinion. Most authors are very reluctant to edit signed material. However, documentation generally is not a personal opinion, and editing should be encouraged. The curious can use the history view to see who said what.

Some suggested text "styles"

  • to indicate a file name, use "emphasized" markup. 
''filename.ext'' or ''local/config.php''

filename.ext or local/config.php

  • to indicate a directory name alone, use "emphasized" markup and include the trailing slash (/). 
''cookbook/''

cookbook/

Suggested Styling for Wiki Links and Link Text

Link Text Spacing

  • In general minimise the use of CamelCase, ie prefer [[Page Directives]] to [[PageDirectives]]
  • When link leads to multilanguage content use [[Sales|+]] syntax to ensure translated title will be used as a link text if available.