We're currently rewriting our documentation for Zencoder, and are looking for examples of good web-based docs. For example, I still use Slicehost tutorials for Linux work (http://articles.slicehost.com); they're really well done how-to guides for web hosting and linux sysadmin work.<p>Any other examples of good doc systems, or tips for creating effective documentation?
<a href="http://us3.php.net/strstr" rel="nofollow">http://us3.php.net/strstr</a> -> The php docs have one redeeming quality that I wish all of them had: comments! Whenever there is odd behavior, a gotcha, a pitfall, it's always in the comments. No need to trawl through blogs and mailing lists.
Flask's documentation is my favorite. I sat down and read all of it one night just because it was so beautiful and readable.<p><a href="http://flask.pocoo.org/" rel="nofollow">http://flask.pocoo.org/</a>
This is my favorite documentation... <a href="http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/" rel="nofollow">http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/</a><p>The table of contents dropdown tab at the top is a cool way to organize the different categories of information... the styling of the docs is also consistent and easily legible
CodeIgniter: <a href="http://codeigniter.com/user_guide" rel="nofollow">http://codeigniter.com/user_guide</a><p>The interface is really simplistic which allows me to read the documentation a lot longer than other site (ex. php.net). Also, it's very well-organized and completed, I can go there every time I have a question about the framework and don't need to Google much.
SQLAlchemy
<a href="http://www.sqlalchemy.org/docs/" rel="nofollow">http://www.sqlalchemy.org/docs/</a><p>Mako Templates
<a href="http://www.makotemplates.org/docs/" rel="nofollow">http://www.makotemplates.org/docs/</a><p>Beautifully written, well documented, plenty of examples and use cases... and then a super responsive developer that appears to never sleep and answers questions posted on the mailing list within minutes.<p>Pyramid (The Pylons/BFG Merger)
<a href="http://docs.pylonshq.com/" rel="nofollow">http://docs.pylonshq.com/</a><p>Documentation + 100% test coverage and also a very responsive development team.
In addition to the great links already posted, if you are looking to really describe your code, check out the Underscore.js docs: <a href="http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/docs/underscore.html" rel="nofollow">http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/docs/underscore.h...</a>
I really like msdn. Especially when you switch the presentation to LightWeight of Script free<p><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/preferences/experience/?returnurl=%252fen-us%252flibrary%252fms123401" rel="nofollow">http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/preferences/experien...</a>
jQuery and CakePHP have been very helpful in the past.<p><a href="http://docs.jquery.com/Main_Page" rel="nofollow">http://docs.jquery.com/Main_Page</a><p><a href="http://book.cakephp.org/" rel="nofollow">http://book.cakephp.org/</a><p>Also, the PHP documentation is very good. The layout could be better but it's kept really simple with lots of examples to help you out.<p><a href="http://www.php.net/manual/en/" rel="nofollow">http://www.php.net/manual/en/</a>
Nanoc has excellent, comprehensive documentation with great typography and style in the layout:<p><a href="http://nanoc.stoneship.org/docs/" rel="nofollow">http://nanoc.stoneship.org/docs/</a><p>backbone.js docs are concise and easy to follow, also well designed:<p><a href="http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/" rel="nofollow">http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/</a>
The best documentation I've ever read is Heroku's new addon provider docs: <a href="https://addons.heroku.com/provider" rel="nofollow">https://addons.heroku.com/provider</a><p>Click any of the links on the bottom. They're gorgeous, informative, and have fantastic examples.
The Mongoid docs are really pretty: <a href="http://mongoid.org/docs/installation/" rel="nofollow">http://mongoid.org/docs/installation/</a><p>People either love or hate the Ruby docs - I like them, personally. I never have issues finding what I need. <a href="http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/</a><p>I also like the rdoc.info stuff. It's a bit spartan, but it's usable, as long as the gem author actually included documentation. <a href="http://rdoc.info/github/mislav/will_paginate/master/frames" rel="nofollow">http://rdoc.info/github/mislav/will_paginate/master/frames</a>
<a href="http://blog.dexy.it/247" rel="nofollow">http://blog.dexy.it/247</a> should be ready soon. The product allows your documenation to be ran like normal code, no matter the language, therefore you will always have working docs(if regularly running it against a vm)
I like the Google Closure documentation. It has a nice search functionality. <a href="http://closure-library.googlecode.com/svn/docs/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://closure-library.googlecode.com/svn/docs/index.html</a>
I think the Compass docs rock: <a href="http://compass-style.org/docs/reference/compass/" rel="nofollow">http://compass-style.org/docs/reference/compass/</a><p>(But if I remember correctly, they don't rock in all browsers.)
No one mentioned Apple's docs? I find them pretty well-written.<p><a href="http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/navigation/" rel="nofollow">http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/navigation/</a>
i like publican, you have to feed it docbook (xml), but it then outputs pdf/html/epub, allows for pot-po based translations and is nicely stylable.<p>in one setup i put asciidoc (a wiki-syntax-to-docbook tool) before publican to make writing/editing the docs more straight forward.<p>i cannot give you one-size-fits-all documentation tips, it depends heavily on what document you work on (api docs, a user guide, etc.) and what is the target audience.<p>personally i like to avoid the word "you" in documentation.
Surprised noone has mentioned Heroku. Simple, accessible, and generally easy to navigate. <a href="http://docs.heroku.com/" rel="nofollow">http://docs.heroku.com/</a>
I like racket's documentation (although some more examples would be nice): <a href="http://docs.racket-lang.org/" rel="nofollow">http://docs.racket-lang.org/</a>
For reference documentation, I find this one great: <a href="http://railsapi.com/doc/rails-v3.0.1/" rel="nofollow">http://railsapi.com/doc/rails-v3.0.1/</a>