I worked on this a while ago, but never got around to completing it, there were a number of problems with the ColdFusion 8 documentation that always annoyed me. Then when they announced Coldfusion 9 with better documentation, I put the project on hold and waited.
While the ColdFusion 9 is actually better, it suffers from a lot of the same problems as the old one. So the problems I have addressed here are.
1. Size Does Matter
This documentation is a fraction of the size, most documentation pages are somewhere between 5% and 30% of the Adobe content. Why you might ask, well try doing a view source on the Adobe documentation, there is a lot of bloat, crazy long id's and all sorts of unnecessary bits.
2. Simple URL's
Ever just want to get to the docs quickly? Sure, all the time, well the adobe ones are never quick, because they dont have simple URL's and also the size makes it slow also. This documentation allows you to use the domain and function / tag name to jump straight to the content cfmldocs.com/cfoutput for example
3. Consistency
There is a lack of consistency on the documentation, you will realise this if you ever try to scrape it. For example, there is a page where you can see all tags, but no page where you can see all functions. And within the content its self, there is often no consistency in the format, layout or content of each tag / function
4. Compliant?
Always bothered me that Adobe, which could be called a Web company could release HTML documentation that wasn't HTML or CSS compliant, its not even close. This documentation is both fully HTML & CSS compliant.
5. Other
There are a whole heap of other things that have been fixed along the way. The entire content is stored in a database and produced as static html when first browsed, thus to change the format etc, I can just delete the html and next time someone browses, it will get regenerated.
6. Whats next
There are a few things I will be releasing soon, some this weekend. The main things I wanted are.
- Ability to download all the documentation in a simple ZIP file to use locally
- An AIR version that you can run and search locally
- The ability to print a piece of documentation in a nice format as PDF.
- The ability for users to edit the content, I plan on setting up a group of editors who can fix / edit any issues.
- Daily auto Tweet a tag to introduce you to a new tag.
Now because of the volume of the content, I haven't reviewed it all, I expect there are problems, please use the contact page to report any problems being errors, omissions etc. The way it has been designed, they should be easy to fix across the board.
The content is still vastly the Adobe ColdFusion 9 documentation which its self is quite good, this just mainly addresses the presentation & delivery of that content.
I welcome all feedback