News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Ask HN: Tell us about your project that's not done yet but you want feedback on. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Tell us about your project that's not done yet bu... by adrianmsmith on Thursday August 17, 2023 @07:23AM (#37159966)
I understand this isn't the direction you're going in, but I would love a desktop app which could edit documentation (mainly text, but with diagrams), but save it locally to be checked in to Git. Imho documentation should be near the source, and go through the same branching and PR workflow that the source it describes goes through.

Ideally the desktop app would be a GUI which was easy to use, providing the basic features of Word or LyX or a markdown editor such as basic formatting, bullets, headings at various levels. Ideally some kind of diagram editor as well.

Ideally it'd save in a format which was reasonably amenable to being saved in Git and being merged from various branches, and which wouldn't be too verbose if you're looking through a PR on GitHub etc. So a text format, with no "# Created on <date>" fields. I have to say LyX solves most of these points so that's what I use at the moment.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Tell us about your project that's not done yet bu... by limandoc on Thursday August 17, 2023 @12:17PM (#37164011)
> documentation should be near the source I totally agree with this statement. Moreover, I plan to have a feature that will allow to place your whole project folder into your vault in my app and then reference a diagram through the code/inner file (e.g. using comment blocks). And that file will be visible, searchable, within my documentation software. Think of it as a layer above the code.

However I do not want to tie the documentation process to git as it will be harder for other team members (think of POs, Teamleads, clients) to find the documentation through git history. Instead, a separate IDE for documentation (as is my app) is an ideal place to store & share knowledge. Just like there is separate app for slack, e-mail, browser, etc.

Thanks for your thoughts!

[ Parent | on HN ]