A while back we had our first WooWeek (which had it’s own challenges; but that’s for another post) and we’re sure that many of you are wondering what we actually did during that week…
Well, one of the things that has been on our to do list for a while now, was to redesign & optimize our theme documentation a bit, as the existing format probably wasn’t as usable as it should be. So this is what the revised theme docs now look like:
Canvas Theme Documentation
If you can remember what the old theme docs looked like, we’ve basically changed this for the new version:
- Theme documentation should be focused on being usable, so we’ve increased the size to now use full width and thus making the content easy to navigate & peruse;
- The sidebar navigation now serves as a table of contents for all the documentation available for the theme and also scrolls with you as you scroll down the page.
So we’d love to hear what you think, as these changes have been rolled out to all theme docs for both free & paid themes. You can view the docs for Bueno as this is a free theme.
And just as a note… These are the kind of improvements we’ll aim to bring to WooThemes in future WooWeeks i.e. stuff that’s not gonna make the world stop turning if we don’t do it, but also stuff that can add value if we actually find the time to implement it. So hopefully you’ll find value in this approach going forward!
11 Responses to “New Theme Documentation”
But it’s not full width, as it still has a sidebar
Thanks Maggie.
Loving it! This is adds major value to the few themes I’ve bought. Almost feels like I’m being reimbursed in full. And that’s not quite right, but in a good way, erm, uh… Next portfolio theme you guys release, I’ll consider dusting off the ol’ coinpurse.
Looks Great! Easy to use and explains the usage very well!
If i had to pick one thing (slight UX issue) is when you click the navigation on the sidebar, the page autoscrolls to the article section but it can take a few seconds for the navbar to follow and it would take the users focus off the subsections in that menu item. Not a major issue
Overall though good job
Nice proactive update to the docs.It’s looking much clearer to me, not that I really every used the documentation
Big step – nice!
A good documentation gives you more time for your work because of less communication in the forum.
Screencasts are the biggest hit and made fast.
Yep, I caught this the other day when I went to look at the docs, and thought, “Oh, yes – much better!”
Clean formatting, nice extra touches, and much easier for moving through quickly & easily.
I just noticed this today and checked the blog to see if you had announced it …
I love love love this! So nice and clean and easy!!!! Way to go guys, yet another way you keep the product top-notch.
Please, please, please, make all documentation freely available. How are our end users supposed to learn how to use the theme on their site? Fantastic products, but a very weird decision on the support docs – how can making them openly available to all be anything but a positive step for Woo?
I can see their point though. As a developer (with a developer subscription), it is my job to support the end user and train them to use their own theme. Opening up the support to (non-paying) end users makes the Woo team foot the bill to support your clients. The themes are also under GPL, no? So technically what you are paying for are graphics and support, as with other open source models.
There are too many out there that download themes from shady websites, and we would rather they buy from us. We need an incentive to actually buy from us, so giving forum support, documentaion, codex, tutorials etc. is only available to paying members.