Missing Documentation for Geoserver 2.0

committed patch. mike pumphrey is reviewing. . . .

I would like to promote this issue to put it on the Roadmap for the next release. There is still a huge amount of 1.7.x user doc content that is not in trunk docs. I have not even looked at the developer docs discrepancy. It concerns me that we are at 2.0-RC1 and we are still missing many features (in that they are not documented on trunk). Users still need to read 1.7.x and trunk side-by-side.

Mike and Alyssa, the new docs you have written are excellent. They must have taken quite a while. Some of the 1.7.x docs are more textual and do not require new screenshots, just some proofing and updating. These could be delegated to the original authors or knowledgeable volunteers. We can make these subtasks.

If you agree, we could promote this issue to:
Priority: Critical
Fix version: 2.0-RC2

We need it to be Critical to block release. We need it to be fix-version on a release tag for it to appear on the radar. Fix-version on a branch will be invisible.

It is time to start hassling all module maintainers to get some better docs. I am as bad an offender as any. Good docs make a huge difference to end users. Check out the latest PostGIS docs. Inspirational levels of improvement, and better than any commercial competitor. As good as PostgreSQL. Sphinx lets us do just as well.

Documentation is not what developers like to do, so you need to crack the whip.

Thanks for the shout out and the extra documentation push. Mike and I are currently working on updating all parts of the user manual with a deadline of early October. You say that there are a number of 1.7.x sections that need (relatively) simple proofing and updating for 2.0 inclusion. If you could list those out, and point me to the correct URL, I will prioritize those sections. My plan is to spend one day a week working on docs.

As for module maintainers taking on documenting their section, that would be great. Mike is way more familiar with the work flow, as I'm still learning my way around geoserver, but if people can help me associate person with section, I will work the whip. We can definitely take documents-however rough-and make it readable and usable.

Hope this helps. Let me know if there's anything else I can do.

Thanks also from me for the kudos. Regrettably, good documentation is time consuming, and unless it is deemed a priority in my work, not nearly as much of it will be done as I would like. It sounds like the plan is to do minimal ports over from 1.7.x to trunk, so at least the main larger sections will not be missing. More than that, I'll try to do when I can. So we will have docs soon, but they may not be good docs...

Shall we keep this one open still? Documentation for 2.0.x is there, though not as complete as we would like...

Guys please, can you have a look at this truckload of issues and see if they are really still unresolved?

I just closed subtasks 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 42. The others are still valid. Thanks for the heads up.