Extension for online manual or wiki?

[adoucette]

Hello,
What options are available for putting together an online user manual in Joomla 5?
One option is that I could do this using Joomla core with articles arranged in nested categories, and put together a menu to provide navigation among them.
I would be interested if options with additional features were available, like perhaps:
- allow export of manual to PDF and/or EPUB format
- wiki style editing
- comments on pages
- FAQs

I've seen extensions for FAQs, for comments on Joomla articles, for "page flip" presentation of imported static PDFs or Docs, and for file/doc managers to serve up/downloads of PDFs and Docs, but so far nothing that's built to make an online user manual.
I see that Joomla is moving away from mediawiki (had to be installed side-by-side and had no native Joomla integration) to Docusaurus. (I don't see an integration or extension for Docusaurus?)

Thank you for any suggestions.
Ari

[Webdongle]

Creates pdf https://extensions.joomla.org/extension ... phoca-pdf/ try 'print' on their test site https://www.phoca.cz/demo/phoca-pdf-demo

Wiki or Joomla for documentation. That was a debate several years ago about docs.joomla.org. Many said that using Joomla can be better than a wiki for documentation

https://extensions.joomla.org/extension ... jt-search/

[adoucette]

Thank you Webdongle. I do use some of Phoca's products and am pleased with them - I have to assume the "print to PDF" extension works as indicated.

The link provided about using Joomla vice a Wiki did not take me to a page relevant to that topic.

As an update, I do see that Akeeba offers a free documentation extension here. (Disclaimer: I'm a customer of their other software and pleased all around with what I've purchased and used.)
That extension "Docimport" appears to require an "XML Book" format to be ingested. I've found a WYSIWYG XML Book editor here.

JDocManual was also a promising project, but it has since been replaced and is now considered outdated.

Are there any other extensions focused on building documentation or online manuals? Ideally I'd like to implement something that members of an access group can contribute to, vice having to organize and upload a static XML Book to be rendered. Preferred would be something like a collaborative eBook - where users with appropriate permissions could add and edit content, and it could be either read online or exported to be read elsewhere.

[Webdongle]

Clicking the 'print' button on the demo page opens up the pdf options in the browser.

The link at the bottom of my post is to a search extension.

There are extensions for documentation but I didn't post links because I think the pdf extension only works with pdf articles.

Will do some research to help give you options. I don't mind researching because you have obviously put effort in yourself

[ceford]

JDocManual was also a promising project, but it has since been replaced and is now considered outdated.

I would be interested to know who said that! There has been considerable development of jdocmanual.org this year. I have spent the last few days translating the Joomla Help files from English to German. Tricky for me because I don't speak German.

Its sources are in GitHub flavoured markdown and you could use it now to write your own manual. It should be pretty easy to script conversion to any other format. That is not my goal.

There are plenty of documentation packages besides Docusaurus!

[adoucette]

I would be interested to know who said that!

My apologies. I had read from the GitHub page for JDocManual that it was now considered obsolete. Screen capture below.

2024-09-03_15-30-32.gif

Is JDocManual something that can be easily incorporated into existing Joomla sites to serve as an online manual or book/text?

There are plenty of documentation packages besides Docusaurus!

That was my assumption as well - and I hope that there are some good ones that are functional, easy to use, and can integrate well within an existing Joomla install. What are some of the better examples of those which you know of?

Additionally, it looks like the RSTickets!Pro extension has an included "Knowledge Base" function. I've been trying this out on the demo site the developers provide but it doesn't seem to support things like nested categories, pagination, and pdf/epub export that I might prefer to have in an online manual.

Thank you again for any assistance or nudges in the right direction (e.g. Ceford, I'm excited to hear from you since you've been doing some work in this very area for the Joomla project -- thank you for weighing in!)

[ceford]

So it was me who shot myself in the foot! Jdocmanual is under active development. The latest version is here: https://github.com/ceford/cefjdemos-com-jdm. You can see the current state of the site content at https://jdocmanual.org/.

Not only has the code been changing but my ideas on how to use it have changed. I use VSCodium to edit the Markdown source files and preview the results. The installation is tricky because the sources are outside the web tree. But if you have a mind you can create your own sources and add your own manual. It is unlikely ever to be a JED offering because the libraries it uses do not pass JED Checker tests and I can't support anyone who uses it. My focus is on preparation of an alternative Help system (to docs.joomla.org that uses MediaWiki). How that might be delivered is an open question at the moment.

I don't want to comment on alternatives to Docusaurus. I did try it myself and found it wanting. The main problem is the Multilingual requirement for Joomla Help pages.

[Webdongle]

Jdocmanual looks just like how some users wanted docs.joomla.org to look like.

[adoucette]

Here are the options I've found thus far, and my initial impression of them (read: my initial impression, my own opinion).

Joomla Articles
- Already built in to Joomla core. Free.
- Could organize articles into hierarchical category tree
- Can set permissions for adding and editing, and require workflow moderation
- Fully searchable, extensible, usable in other modules
- For Comments on articles
- - Akeeba Engage is free
- - Allows comment moderation
- - https://www.akeeba.com/download/engage/3-3-5.html

JoomHelpdesk - $70
- https://www.joomboost.com/joomla-compon ... pdesk.html
- Really quite impressive
- - Extensive configuration options in backend
- - Appears to have inherited codebase from https://www.freestyle-joomla.com/produc ... ortal.html
- Includes a Knowledge Base function that can be used for documentation
- - Hierarchical categories of articles
- - Can be commented on and rated
- - Modules to display list of categories and articles
- - Print button
- Includes a Helpdesk (tickets)
- - Can receive / reply tickets by email
- - Can auto assign tickets by group to people to respond to them
- - Can configure access levels to submit and to respond to tickets
- Includes a Questions and Answers section
- - Can configure access levels to ask and to respond to questions
- Includes a Glossary section (with in-article word highlighting to link to definitions)
- Includes a Testimonials section
- - Can configure access levels to submit and to respond to testimonials
- Includes an Announcements section
- - Can be commented on

RS Tickets Pro - $25
- https://www.rsjoomla.com/joomla-extensi ... -desk.html
- Has a Knowledge Base function that can be used for documentation
- - Hierarchical categories of articles
- - Modules to display list of categories and articles
- Includes a Helpdesk (ticketing)
- - Can receive / reply tickets by email
- - Can auto assign tickets by group to people to respond to them

Minitek FAQ Book Pro - $39
- https://www.minitek.gr/joomla/extension ... k-faq-book
- Documentation
- Questions and Answers
- Moderation tools

JDocManual
- https://github.com/ceford/cefjdemos-com-jdm
- Free, open source
- Reads documentation from static markdown files
- May not be ideal for collaborative authoring and editing
- Allows for translation of docs pages into other languages


For now, I'm leaning toward Joomla articles in nested categories, with Akeeba Engage for comments.
What other options are out there?

[Webdongle]

For what it's worth my vote is for Joomla articles in nested categories, with Akeeba Engage for comments

I see no more options than you have described.

[ceford]

This is a nice summary and the comments on my Jdocmanual are fair although its main purpose is collaborative working (in many languages) using git diffs to review changes. It would be good if you could report back how you get on with Joomla Workflows.