Documentation Policy

Team MediaPortal has now instituted a Documentation policy as follows:

JIRA

  Tip Closing an issue within the documentation workflow is only allowed if user has the project role Doc Reviewer.

All Mantis issues must be closed before the release and the projects have to be set to "released" in the Mantis back end. Otherwise there won't be a Changelog and there will be errors in the Roadmap.

Any issue that requires documentation (having a Documentation sub-task) should be documented as soon as the issue is marked resolved and must be completed before an issue is closed. When documentation is complete, add a Web Link with the link to the related wiki page(s) and close the Documentation sub-task.

Documentation of new features or changes in how a feature works

Every change we make in a version, which either introduces a new feature, or changes known functionality, or even just the appearance of the MediaPortal interface or Configuration Tools, must be documented in the Wiki under the Whats New section for the relevant release. See How to add changes.

There will be no release until this is done.

Documentation of Skin related changes

Every change which either introduces new functionality in our skin engine, or changes a present one, must be documented for our skin designers on the Skin Related Changes pages for the appropriate version. A template is provided to enter these changes in a consistent format. See How to Add Changes.

Of course. these changes must also be added to the Skin Architecture, especially the Skin Controls pages once the final version is released.

Documentation of Plugin related changes

Every change which effects the developers of community plugins (allowing them more freedom, or requiring that they update their work), must be documented for our extension developers on the Plugin Related Changes pages. These use the same template as Skin Related Changes and instructions are in How to Add Changes.

Of course. these changes must also be added to the Plugin Developer's Guide, particularly to Plugin Architecture > Controls once the final version is released.

Documentation of Localization changes

In order to get all changes translated into the supported languages, and to avoid conflicts, we must document all changes to strings files on the related Strings Changes page.