Item11262: Update Installation Guide

FoswikiCamp2011 sprint.

Updating the System.InstallationGuide to be more user friendly, with less words.

Current progress at Sandbox.AJInstallationGuide and Sandbox.AJSystemRequirements.

TODO:

• 5 minute install
• Merge "protecting configure" with Support.ProtectingYourConfiguration
• Merge "System Requirements" with System.SystemRequirements (Sandbox.AJSystemRequirements)
• Refactor "Step 7: Authentication". Too long...
• Refactor System.InstallationGuidePart2
  • Probably doesn't need too much work
  • Rename? (TailoringFoswiki? AdvancedInstallation?)
• Troubleshooting section
• Mention Email Test feature
• Fold in the install guides from the Support web, then remove them, so there is only one "true" install guide (to avoid confusion)
• Also harvest install information and issues reported in the Support questions.
• Ensure INSATLL.html gets generated correctly

-- AndrewJones - 18 Nov 2011

Nice work! I added some notes to AJInstallationGuide, basically that we can't really claim 100% 5.1 compatibility.

-- PaulHarvey - 19 Nov 2011

Thanks OK, I'll leave it as compatible with 4.2.4, which is what it was before. It might be worth finding out if we are compatible and updating the TWikiCompatibilityPlugin, but dunno if its worth it.

(Pasting your comments below so it doesn't get lost, as Sandbox.AJInstallaationGuide will be deleted at some point -- AndrewJones)

Hi Andrew, great work! I really like the quick-install overview.

I'm not sure we can say that we are 100% 5.1 compatible; that might be the case, but only accidentally. I'm not aware that we've actively tried to consider TWiki API/template/plugin/javascript compatibility in the advancements made from 1.0 -> 1.1, especially with respect to javascript and templates. On the perl front, we've deprecated some plugin handlers which IIRC had flawed implementations and/or have cleaner alternatives - did TWiki deprecate them too?); It seems 5.1 may have some new API changes in the usermapper API; there are some new macros we don't need (Eg. %PARENTTOPIC% might be equivalent to %QUERY{parent.name}% or %QUERY{'OtherWeb.OtherTopic'/parent.name}% as per QuerySearch); and I know that we've tried to keep SpreadSheetPlugin in sync, but not all of the new functions introduced in 5.1 make sense; or in the case of the loop constructs might be trying to solve a problem that is better off addressed outside of SSP/CALC.

-- PaulHarvey - 18 Nov 2011

-- AndrewJones - 19 Nov 2011

For 5.1 compat, we have not added the INCLUDE header shift option - that one would be useful, but when I looked at incorporating it, it hits SEARCH in places a well and I didn't want to get into search.

The SpreadSheetPlugin should be up to date. I added all their features and also added unit tests -- and found / fixed some bugs. Agree with pharvey, some of the new features were uh.. dubious? But added them anyway for compatibility.

-- GeorgeClark - 20 Nov 2011

I suggest adding to the TODO list, an item to review an incorporated the information in the Support and Faq questions into the official documentation. This makes sure that it stays up to date as installation steps change.

-- GeorgeClark - 20 Nov 2011

Andrew, do you have plans mapped out for InstallationGuidePart2. The purpose of the break-up into Part1 & Part2 was so that the there was a clear delineation of the linking requirements. Part1 was all static links to Foswiki.org and assume your new site is not yet running, Part2 would have links to the local site, including links into configure tabs, etc. It made it easier for Kenneth to know what links to sanitize. InstallationGuide included part1 and 2 to to generate the static INSTALL.html shipped in the distribution.

After a particularly difficult time of helping a user install Foswiki on Ubuntu 11.10, we really do need some per-distribution details. Perl dependencies, etc. I've opened Item11467 I'm adding the dependencies into SystemRequirements, along with some minimal per-distribution hints.

-- GeorgeClark - 24 Jan 2012

Marking this urgent for 1.2, because we need to figure out what was completed, and what is left dangling and get the results release ready.

-- GeorgeClark - 22 Dec 2014

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