From owner-freebsd-doc  Tue May 23 19: 6:50 2000
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Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 19:43:07 +0100
From: Mark Ovens <mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org>
To: doc@freebsd.org
Subject: Why no Master Index?
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Is there a reason why there is no Master Index/TOC for the FreeBSD
docs? IMHO it would make sense to have a single point of entry into
the documentation set. The handbook and FAQ are the high profile docs
but the rest, especially the articles, are somewhat hidden from view
being referenced from the handbook and FAQ and pointed to people in
replies to questions.

Something along the lines of:

		The FreeBSD Documentation Set
		=============================

	1. Handbook - A catagorized guide to FreeBSD

	2. Frequently Asked Questions - Someone's probably asked it already

	3. FDP Primer - How to write even more FreeBSD docs

	4. Porters Handbook - Packaging up software for FreeBSD

	5. PPP Primer - Your gateway to the 'net

	6. Articles/Tutorials - Specialist handbooks/guides

		6.1 Committers Guide - For the upper echelon only

		6.2 Diskless X - Look Mum! No hard drive

		6.3 Fonts - Both for the console and X

		6.4 Formatting Media - Getting rid of your excess FAT

		6.5 MH - An e-mail program

		6.6 Multi OS - Keeping some of your FAT

		6.7 New Users - We all started here once

		6.8 Programming Tools - 101 ways to say "Hello, World"

		6.9 Zip Drive - SCSI and IDE



It could even list some key third party docs, John Polstra's cvsup FAQ
springs to mind.

As Nik has just suggested having the docs as a package to be installed
by sysinstall it would seem sensible to have something like this. In
fact I would go so far as to suggest that sysinstall automatically
installed a browser with the docs index as it's Home Page. Having the
docs "in your face" doesn't seem to be inappropriate for new users.

Just my two pen'orth

-- 
        ...and on the eighth day God created UNIX
________________________________________________________________
      FreeBSD - The Power To Serve http://www.freebsd.org
      My Webpage http://ukug.uk.freebsd.org/~mark/
mailto:mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org             http://www.radan.com



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