Documentation Beta

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Knossos

09:39

Is it permitted to cross-post between related subjects? For example, there is now the NPE Resolution doc in Java. However, I can think of a relevant example that might help someone that is specific to Android. The View.findViewById() method. Would posting a resolution for this method be out of scope when posting on the NPE doc in Java?

Dan Hulme

@Knossos I don't think much of the existing example, if that helps you decide.

5 hours later…

Kevin Montrose

15:02

Q: Press Tab to indent code

I know that this is an old discussion, but I feel like it might be worth addressing in the context of the documentation site. The documentation site is arguably even more focused on writing code than StackOverflow is. While I really like the realtime markdown editing and display, not being able...

took a bit, and a little debate internally, but decided to do it for Documentation

the editor is different enough from Q&A that the "tab to navigate" use case is waaaaay less important

user1803551

@KevinMontrose any update on your review of docs-beta.stackexchange.com/questions/444/…?

Kevin Montrose

we've done some mockups, but investigating implementation is a lower priority right now; existing split pane code is rather finicky

user1803551

what is the priority now?

Kevin Montrose

in the immediate past - a bunch of old bugs and even older "we should do this" feature requests; little older stuff - launching new tags, sane Google-facing-stuff (what happens when stuff gets deleted, which pages are canonical, which pages should be indexed, etc.); near future - anonymous users, privileges, and badges

also planning out what the end of the beta / launch on SO looks like, though that's a bit further down the line

2 hours later…

JonasCz

17:26

Now I'm going to want this on Q & A even more..
In fact, I don't think tab to navigate is all that important on Q & A either, as the only thing to tab to is the revision summary or the tag entry area. The fact that tab moves focus to the next input field instead of actually doing what I expect has irritated me a lot more often than it has helped me.

If someone arrives on Docs through google, will the relevent example already be expanded ?
ie. If I come to docs by searching google for "split string with regex", will I just end up at the "Strings" topic, with the example i'm interested in collapsed, and somewhere at the bottom, or will the releveant example be already visible without clicking ?

Kevin Montrose

@JonasCz if you come through a deep link to the example (like so), it's expanded (and we scroll you to it) - we'll be canonical-ing Examples and Topics for Google, so they should be serving those deep links in search results. It's hard for us to guarantee though, Google's a bit of a black box.

JonasCz

17:40

Ah, that's nice. Just one more question: If I copy / bookmark a docs url with the auto-appended hash (timestamp) included (just viewing the topic, not an older revision or something), and later revisit that url or share it, will I see the most recent version of the topic, or will I see it as it was when I copied / bookmarked the url ?

Kevin Montrose

you see latest by default, but a little yellow box with the option to view the older version will be there (if the Topic has changed)

http://docs-beta.stackexchange.com/documentation/java/88/streams#t=201602181330‌40277

We're basically betting that, at least a fair amount of the time, you'll be better served by the latest docs. But "no really, I need to see the same page again" has to be available and easy to get at.

(in theory you could just go through revision history and get those links, but ick)

JonasCz

That link gives me an "oops, something bad happend" page if I modify the timestamp in the url to something impossible / way in the past (eg. #t=166603171738298234459) :-)

Not really a big deal, but..

Might be good to check if there actually is an older revision available before showing that popup. I presume mods will also be able to hard-delete specific revisions at some point ?

Kevin Montrose

17:56

there'll be ways to hard nuke some revisions, my inclination is to reserve it for really bad stuff though (shock images, hate screeds, credit cards, passwords, etc.)

@JonasCz digging

Kevin Montrose

18:22

Q: Documentation: The Update-en-ing

Six-to-eight weeks Several months ago we proposed an expansion to Stack Overflow: Documentation. People have been asking for an update for awhile, and we’re finally ready to give one. But first… You can still get into the beta! The beta has been underway since mid-November, and at time of wri...

discussion featured documentation

none of that is really news, except that beta signups close the 31st

Undo

Are there any plans to get SO mods in the beta?

I'm in, but a few of us haven't gotten invites yet

Kevin Montrose

if they've signed up, yeah - I've heard a little bit of "I don't want to be bothered with this" through the grapevine too, so I'm not opting anyone in w/o their permission

Undo

k. It'd be really awesome to get access to whatever mod tools there are for docs before it goes live on main.

Assuming we're going to be moderating this, which I would think we are.

Adam Lear

18:38

@Undo there aren't any special mod tools at this point

Undo

Kevin Montrose

yeah, I intend to force feed mod tasks to employees - so we build decent mod tooling

Undo

I like the sound of that.

Kevin Montrose

it's sort of hard to anticipate exactly what we'll need too, so much is different between docs and q&a

like, would SO mod tools look the way they do if SO launched with an edit review queue?

I don't even have a guess

also, it's an excuse to make my coworkers suffer

Adam Lear

since when do you need an excuse?

Kevin Montrose

18:45

you raise an excellent point

Undo

I'm tainted because I'm used to the Q&A tools, but off the top of my head:
(1) A way to ban reviewers, ideally tied in with the rest of the queues,
(2) The standard rev redaction tools built in for when someone posts their API key
(3) A way to just delete topics/examples/whatever

Adam Lear

@Undo #3 exists - mod edits don't require approval, so you just do a draft

of course, there's no way to permanently delete something, but that ties into #2

and by "permanently" I mean "inaccessibly with a timestamped link"

that's not a word, but whatever

Undo

I suspect people will type crap into the 'topic request' thing

Overall, this all looks great. I'm excited to see it in action.

JonasCz

When's that next wave of invites going to go out ?

ChrisF

19:02

@KevinMontrose I've asked a few times for access to documentation, but nothing has ever happened. So let's make this an official request.

Kevin Montrose

19:16

@JonasCz early next week is what I'm aiming for

@ChrisF sent one your way

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