[LRUG] [Help] Hosted Documentation Recommendations

[Nicholas Johnson]

Middleman plus Github Static pages is a nice option. Your documentation
authors only need to be able to write Markdown.

On 23 April 2015 at 13:51, Alex Reis <alex at alexmreis.com> wrote:

> Hey Simon,
>
> Not quite the canned solution you were looking for, but last time I had to
> write help for a product I just stole Bootstrap's doc style and plugged it
> in with a set of static pages. Anyone who can edit HTML can maintain them
> quite easily, and they use a common layout so it's not hard to keep them in
> sync.
>
> Obviously, the app was also made using bootstrap, so the look/feel was
> consistent all around, YMMV.
>
> Slate is also a great option inside a rails app
> https://github.com/tripit/slate , but mostly for technical docs.
>
> Searching, if you have everything on one page, is just a matter of hitting
> Cmd-F :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Alex
>
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 1:57 PM, Simon Morley <simon at polkaspots.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hello All
>>
>> *What do you use for your product documentation?*
>>
>> We just launched a new service and our docs were foolishly / typically
>> left to the last minute.
>>
>> Long-term we're going to use Github pages but we have no time (or people)
>> to make it pretty. And add search. Or train those writing the docs.
>>
>> In desperation, we've chucked them on readme.io. However, words cannot
>> describe how terrible readme is. Avoid. Plague. Although it is
>> superficially pretty:
>>
>> http://docs.cucumbertony.com
>>
>> We already use Intercom for support so we need none of that. We have our
>> api documentation on apiary (http://docs.polkaspots.apiary.io/#) which
>> is awesome.
>>
>> We just a place for the end-user, customer facing, help-me style docs.
>>
>> *Stuff we tried:*
>>
>> - Zendesk - good support system, crap docs, terrible community aspect.
>> - Freshdesk - support orientated.
>> - Help Scout - ok but more about support. Ugly.
>> - Help Juice - OMG VPL expensive.
>> - Readme.io - genuinely made me irate.
>> - Desk - seemingly all about support.
>> - Atlassian - the peeps writing them couldn't understand it.
>> - Github pages - fabulous but needs attention and same issue as Atlassian.
>> - Userdeck - no idea what it does still.
>> - HappyFox - v basic apparently, didn't try.
>> - kayako - too complicated to set up.
>>
>> We need something simple. With basic search. And it needs to be pretty.
>> And easy to use.
>>
>> If this magical beast doesn't exist, it should. I'd even write something
>> with some of you.
>>
>> Great product, shoddy docs. Not cool.
>>
>> Help?
>>
>> S
>>
>>
>> Simon Morley
>> Big Chief | PolkaSpots Supafly Wi-Fi
>>
>> simon at PolkaSpots.com
>> Linkedin: I'm not on it, it sucks
>> 020 7183 1471
>>
>>
>>
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