Obviously it is my own fault I failed meeting a deadline as I was too busy trying to get the hang of the framework. But I couldnt help feeling a bit confused looking back when I noticed that manual allready existed (as of January 2007) when I needed it so badly.

To upgrade, I would setup a new Cake project and then copy your files (controllers, models, etc.) to this project and look what no longer works and fix it.

HTH

@speedmax: Thanks for your comment.

I think it is a good idea to use such a doc system. It looks to me like it is more easier to write docs using such a syntax than XML.

In the event of cake pre-beta and temp docs goes online, as well as forming a effective user documentation strategy for my own projects.

I have made a suggestion to cake trac to ultilize some form of lightweight markup such as Markdown, reStructedText, Textile..

https://trac.cakephp.org/ticket/3457

Its really powerful as some of other software library has shown, symfony(Markdown), Django (Rest), Mootools(Markdown).

Put a readable docs in source distribution in plain text, user/developer will be happier also the software itself will be the biggest beneficiary.

There is a couple interesting example.

1. Django – put user docs in source distro is really handy when i am in middle of coding, every page/section is just a click away. no internet/compiling requried. can export to many many different formats (pdf, html, chm)
http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk/docs/

2. Mootools – same story, but they through in a extra bit of javascript polish, a javascript markup parser. A beautiful doc pages rendered on the fly, when svn update your docs are always in sync.
http://svn.mootools.net/trunk/Docs/

What do you guys thinks? esp for those who contribute to OOS authors software library.

I am not sure Mariano reads your comment, you may have to contact him directly.

The only thing that has been bothering me with the project is the politics of it all. I understand we all have our own agendas and everyone has an opinion (remember what your mom said about opinions?), but why oh why does it seem that this community has a constant battle between the developers of the framework and the community that uses it.

@Mariano: I truly value all of the hardwork that the cakephp developers have put in. My concern is that when you say that I shouldn’t give my suggestions for improvement because I am not going to be “hands on” in developing it myself. The truth is that it is developers like me, who are on the front lines, selling the framework to clients (mostly big media and ad agencies btw) that are going to help you get even more participation in the project.

I guess what I am trying to say is can’t we all just get along? If you think I am crazy, just go through the google group emails or search some of the cakephp blogs and you’ll see what I mean.

BTW, with every paid project I take on for CakePHP, I always plan on donating back a percentage to the cause – I highly suggest that other developers consider doing the same, its the right thing to do.