Based on a question posed by graysky on another thread, an interesting question comes to mind: How does one learn about all the gems that are packaged with the KM distribution? More generally, how does one go about building knowledge on mythtv and the KM distribution?

There are ways to do this. The "Hints & Tips" forum section contains a lot of info, organized chronologically by the date the "article" was created. The wiki "how to" index contains an alphabetized list of interesting information. Finally, the KM release notes contains a lot of info, organized chronologically. While all of this is useful, organizing chronologically by creation date or alphabetically does not facilitate the process of "browsing" to build knowledge about a category of information.

I believe we need a wiki "index" page that provides a brief overview of all the gem's that are out there, organized into high-level categories to facilitate the process of "browsing" to build knowledge. Imagine the existence of an index page with high-level categories like "Creating backups and managing storage"; "Tweaking your front end"; "Remote controls & IR blasters"; "Video output & drivers"; "Tuners and Video Capture"; "Transcoding Video"; "Media players and related utilities"; etc. Under "Remote controls & IR blasters" you would find the list of all articles that are related to dealing with remotes and IR blasters, etc.

Do others feel that this would be useful? If so, I'd be willing to take a first cut at creating such an index. On the other hand, if people don't feel this would be useful, I don't want to invest my time into something that doesn't really add value to the community.

Thoughts?

Marc

An index sounds like a good idea! Making things easy to find will benefit all users.

The index idea sounds awesome.
I can't think of how many times I have looked for something and because I call it something different than someone else, it is next to impossible to find. Using an index will help a lot in that area..

Freaky, I was just thinking this on friday.

_________________
"The amount of time needed to solve a problem is inversely proportionate to the complexity of the solution" -- Me

KM: R5.5
CPU: Athlon 3800+
Vid: nvidia 7300GT
Snd: Chaintech av-710
Tuner: PVR150
HD: 1000gb sata + 750gb sata + 500gb usb

Yeah man, a wiki page is totally the way to go... You can get some of the stuff out of the changelog... I wonder if we can look to cesman to provide a basic list of apps/scripts/goodies, etc. that are preinstalled that we can run with on the wiki?

Someone wanna get us starting creating a wiki page?

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Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

I thought there was a good wiki...

with the likes of... and... or maybe...

but a makeover might be helpful.

The wiki is excellent -- I certainly hope this thread is not implying otherwise to anyone. I've spent a few minutes creating a prototype of what I am thinking of at http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... entalIndex

All I have done is re-organize a small subset of the existing wiki "howto" page, but it helps to provide a more concrete view of what I am thinking of. Looking for feedback...

Marc

@ma - I like what you've start... I was also thinking for a section that more or less listed the included applications with links to their homepages (apps beyond the standard mythtv stuff). For example:

Samba - Allows LINUX-Windows file sharing (would include a link to samba homepage as well as wiki links relating to tweaking samba, etc.)
Mplayer - Allows the viewing of media files beyond what you capture from within mythtv (would include a link to the mplayer homepage as well as siki links relating to tweaking mplayer, addons, etc.)

Thoughts?

_________________
Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

You mean like this:
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... l+Software

I put the list together about a year ago, so it probably needs some updating.

I like graysky's suggestion and I like what psicard did with his page. I've pulled the section on media players to the top of the page and restructured it in a way that I believe incorporates ideas from both -- looking for feedback.

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... entalIndex

Also, can someone tell me how to increase the font size without having to surround everything in "##"? Somehow the font on this page looks incredible small compared to other pages.

Marc

@ma - I like what I'm seeing. To make it even more work on those of us building it, in addition to your list organized by type, I'd like to see a quick n' dirty alphabetical listing as well. The alpha-list should capture all the little known additions and/or basic LINUX stuff to help the new users (i.e. rdd, top, df, screen, etc.) that are included as well as the mainstream "core" apps of KM (i.e. mplayer).

Thoughts?

_________________
Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

The how-to index is alphabetical and I'm not sure that helps very much. It would also need periodic maintenance since many people seem oblivious to the fact or are just unclear on the concept.

BTW - I'm not just being a curmudgeon here, I had an epiphany about 10 years ago when I went to the video rental place with a friend who didn't realize that it was organized alphabetically by title. There are a lot of folks who just don't immediately grasp the organizing principles of things.

As a result I think good topic based groupings, where the topic titles provide signposts, are more likely to be successful.

Just a thought, but do you think we need a version no listed in the brief on some of the topics. E.g. [R5F27]

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Girkers

I have used the Wiki a lot over the last 2+ years and don't know where I would be without it!

I like the changes going on in response to this thread. The thing that I have seen that I think would help just as much (and has been mentioned before) is better documentation of when the instructions where posted and what version they where/are used on. Also, I don't know if this can be done but it would be great if new instructions where at the top of the document and not at the bottom instead of the other way around.

I often go to one of the "how-to" documents and don't know where "new" information starts, what version it relates to and if it's still relevant as new versions often pre-compile the most used options.

Some of the "how-to" docs have good comments on date/version but it's not the standard.

Just my 2 cents and thanks to all those who contribute to the Wiki!

I think adding something like works with version R5F27 or tested with version R5F1 is a great idea

I too use the wiki a lot. one of the issues that I find is trying to figure out if a specific thing I am looking at will work with my current version.

When I find one of these gems that fixes something for me I try to make sure I add a note that it worked with my version.