[apache] / docs / STATUS

Apache HTTP Server 2.1 Documentation Status File.
Last modified: $Date: 2003/04/09 20:47:33 $

For more information on how to contribute to the Apache Documentation
Project, please see http://httpd.apache.org/docs-project/

              ------------------------------

Decisions pending
=================

  -Comment out .gz etc. AddEncoding lines in our default configuration.
    docs/conf/httpd-std.conf.in rev 1.32
    jerenkranz: Current browsers have a tendency to decompress the data 
                when no one really wants it to do that.  If you want the 
                2.0 behavior that leads to transparent decompression 
                by modern browsers, uncomment these lines.  But, this
                shouldn't be our default, and certainly wasn't in 1.3.
     - Backport to 2.0
       +1: wrowe, slive

- Where to put docs checkout on website
     - Leave it at /docs-x.y/
       +1: slive, Erik, Kess, Mads
        0: nd

     - /manual/x.y/
       +1: nd
       -0: Kess, Mads

     - /x.y/manual
       -1: Erik, nd, Mads
        0: Kess
             though it's probably my suggestion, I don't like it
             very well ;-) -- nd

- Figure out what to do about the 2.0 FAQ
    - Copy important stuff from 1.3?
    - Some kind of XML?
    - Something that allows dynamic contributions from users a la
      FAQ-O-Matic?  (I don't think any really good software exists 
      for this.)
    - Perhaps we can use the newly created Wiki for this. (SubWiki,
      with the possibility to get nice commit mails.)
       nd: someone should try to convince me, what the heck is
           so cool with wikis -- nd
       erik: it lowers the entry barrier and therefore users are able to
             contribute (handy for a FAQ, see PHP site)
       nd: yes, good bad example. The PHP docs would mostly be
           better without these comments. I don't want to censor
           the entries, but also don't want to leave them without
           control. IMHO it's better to incorporate changes into the
           static docs. We need some better way of feedback, anyway.

Things That Need Fixing
=======================

- XML
    - Rewriting of the remainder of the manual into xml is in
      progress.  See the bottom of this file for status info.
    - add ids to non-directive sections of the module docs, so they
      get a chance to be linked in the sidebar

- Windows platform docs are in desperate need of rewrites/updates for 2.0.
    - Bill Rowe and Bill Stoddard are good contacts for tech questions.
    - "using apache" has been done, "compiling apache" is still open
    - hints on uninstalling apache (exit monitor, close directories,
      registry entries etc) (PR 10154)
    - FAQ! UTF-8 config and URL encoding for non-ascii characters.

- New Auth system
    - Much clean-up and enhancement of aaa howto
    - Independent note on how to upgrade to new auth system

- modules docs
    - mod_suexec: very little documentation
    - mod_proxy: updates for 2.0
    - mod_status: updates for 2.0
    - mod_example: updates for 2.0
    - mod_rewrite: explain, when what variables are actually available
      (PR 16402)
    
- man pages
    - Convert from nroff to our xml format.  See list at bottom.
    - Then if someone gets creative, they can try to find an automatic
      way to convert back to nroff.
      - An example: http://cyberelk.net/tim/data/xmlto/db2man/
        This is designed for docbook, but it could be adapted.
        I'm not sure what the license is.

- MPM documentation
     - explain what the following command line options do
       (perhaps in the developer/debugging docs):
        -D DEBUG
        -D ONE_PROCESS
              one-process-mode == no threads, i.e. only one
              process handling the requests in a single loop?
        -D NO_DETACH (not in every MPM avail.)
              no daemon, but detached from terminal?
        -D FOREGROUND (not in every MPM avail.)
              ?

- Individual docs will need some cleanup. 
     - misc/custom_errordocs.html needs to be updated to
       essentially describe how the international error
       docs included in 2.0 work
     - misc/perf-tuning.html - needs major rewrite for 2.0
     - misc/rewriteguide.html - needs cleaning in 1.3 and 2.0
     - platform/ebcdic.xml - needs major rework for 2.0

- New build process.
    - install.html has had a first-pass rewrite, it is basically
      accurate, but very incomplete: many configure options are missing,
      especially those inherited from apr.

- API documentation
    - Ben Laurie has written some hooks documentation
    - authn provider API documentation could be useful

- Several features in Apache require write-access to the filesystem.
    Examples: CacheRoot, DavLockDB, ScriptLog
    We should treat the things consistently in the docs, and perhaps
    suggest the use of directory like /usr/local/apache2/var/ that is
    httpd-writable.

- SSL docs are generally good, but they need a refreshing by someone
  familiar with mod_ssl and openssl.

Documentation improvements
==========================

* New user docs: Directory Handling (mod_dir/mod_autoindex/etc)

* Enhancements to the DTD/XSL:
  - <glossary> tag that links to the glossary and uses some special 
    style in the css.
  - New index: directives by context, including listing which directives
    are available for each AllowOverride setting.
  - New index: backout modules by type (aaa, mappers, loggers etc.)
    probably by introducing a <category> element in modulesynopsis
  - Use a tag like <var> in place of <em> for things like the 
    <syntax> listing.
    - in progress
  - add letter links to glossary and quickreference, 
    perhaps also a term overview (sidebar)
  - cross references between the different languages,
    at least links from non-en docs to the originals.
    - Javascript?
    - post processing (s&r, XML::Parser, ...)?
    - pre processing ([kind of] type maps
      generated from sitemap entries like:
      <page><variant lang="en" href="">title</variant>)?
    - looking for other good ideas ;-)
  - remove <pre> elements. Use <br /> and <indent> elements to get
    a similar effect.

* Autogeneration of PDF
  - André is working on this, Erik volunteers to help out

* Windows help file
  - David Shane Holden was working on this

* Improving the "security docs"
  - More content and better organisation.
    - mod_dav ressources are owned by the httpd

* General cleaning and improving of module docs

* Making the directive definitions "less terse" (i.e., adding more
  examples and details to the definitions of the directives)

* Making site-specific enhancements easier, including a documented
  and robust way for 3P module docco to be added -- and have it
  survive a server docco upgrade

  - This could be something a simple and hackish as a manual/extra/
    directory (a la the 1.3 src/modules/extra/ directory) and a
    script in the support directory that scans the files there and
    updates the manual indices.  (We do something like that now for
    httpd.conf file with apxs [LoadModule, etc.].)

* Summarize all the implemented drafts/standards with short explanations
  within a document. (PR 16938)

XML Conversions
===============

The following files need to be converted to XML as described at
http://httpd.apache.org/docs-project/docsformat.html

expand.pl                          # delete after finishing everything

# These will require manual.xsl changes
faq/footer.html                    
faq/header.html
faq/index.html
faq/support.html

# Perhaps these should be left in html to allow the developers to
# play with them
# nope. in order to create other formats, we need 'em as xml. --nd
developer/API.html

# converting from nroff to xml
programs/ab.html
programs/apxs.html
programs/dbmmanage.html
programs/footer.html
programs/header.html
programs/htdigest.html
programs/htpasswd.html
programs/index.html
programs/logresolve.html
programs/other.html
programs/rotatelogs.html
programs/suexec.html