Site Organization Thoughts

[Gary Lewis]

I know we had some discussion about this in the recent New Document Going On The Site - Engine & Emission Diagnosis thread, but I think we need a thread with a more fitting title to continue that discussion.

 

Scott had suggested that we have whole documents together in one place, like we've done with the new 1986 Engine & Emissions Diagnosis book. (Which actually means we'd have a page for each section, not everything on one page.) However, we already have a number of factory service manual (FSS) sections scattered all over the site, so to put them all in one place would take considerable work - on my part and I'm the only one doing it.

 

So, I have a suggestion on which I'd like your thoughts. That is to have a page called something like "1985 Factory Service Manual" and on that page we'd have the Contents page of the '85 FSS. And the Contents would have hyperlinks to each of the sections, as shown below for the '86 Engine & Emissions Diagnosis book. But, a downside of this is that many of the FSS sections are in tabs on the page to which the link would take you, so instead of the FSS section popping up when you click the link you'd then have to click on the Instructions or FSS Section tab.

 

Before you answer look in the menu at how the 1986 Engine & Emissions Diagnosis book comes up. (Documentation/Emissions/1986 Engine & Emissions Diagnosis) See the loooooong list of sub-pages to the main page? Think of how many there would be for an FSS. Or, maybe we'd have to put the sub-sections in and have pages below them?

 

Thoughts, please. We need better organization but I want to get everyone's opinion before we start down this pike.

 

[Lima Delta]

Gary,

I appreciate that you want to have a well organized site here, and I'm am sure there are better ways to organize things. But considering, as you pointed out, how much work it is to reorganize and that you are the only one doing it, I would just like to say that I think you should only put as much time/energy in as you want. I'm sure there are lots of other things you might do with the man-hours required to overcome the path dependency of this site's existing system.

If things are less than ideally organized, well, the rest of us should be able to suck it up and take the extra time to find what we're looking for. Just having access to this diagnosis manual is more than I had before, regardless of how I have to go about getting at it.

Just my $0.02.

Cheers!

[Gary Lewis]

Gary,

I appreciate that you want to have a well organized site here, and I'm am sure there are better ways to organize things. But considering, as you pointed out, how much work it is to reorganize and that you are the only one doing it, I would just like to say that I think you should only put as much time/energy in as you want. I'm sure there are lots of other things you might do with the man-hours required to overcome the path dependency of this site's existing system.

If things are less than ideally organized, well, the rest of us should be able to suck it up and take the extra time to find what we're looking for. Just having access to this diagnosis manual is more than I had before, regardless of how I have to go about getting at it.

Just my $0.02.

Cheers!

Lucas - Thanks, and welcome. Glad it is helping.

However, I saw a comment on FB the other day that said "I can't find anything on that site", so that got me worried. And thinking about how we could do it better. Then the diagnosis book caused a discussion, and here we are.

But, as I think about it, there might not be all that much work to do to have one place for the FSM's to reside. There is no reason the various sections of the FSM can't continue to be embedded on tabs on the appropriate pages. For instance, the page at Documentation/Driveline/4WD FRONT HUBS & ROTORS has that FSM section embedded on the Instructions tab. So why not leave it there and also put it on the appropriate page w/in the FSM? In other words, I don't have to take things off pages or tabs, but I can slowly start building up an additional set of pages.

Tell you what, I'm at a bit of burnout on working on Big Blue at the moment, so I'll give this a go this afternoon after church. I'll scan in the Contents pages of the '85 FSM and start creating the massive number of pages that will be needed to house that book. And on the pages that purport to have the content I've already scanned in, I'll embed that content and create a link to it on the Contents page.

Which brings me to a completely different question: Where do we put these documents, like the FSM's, diagnosis, etc?

Currently we have the Literature section (Documentation/Literature/...) but those pages are arranged by year. But things like FSS span pretty much all the years, even though the one being discussed is '85.

Thoughts, please!

 

[FuzzFace2]

Which brings me to a completely different question: Where do we put these documents, like the FSM's, diagnosis, etc?

Currently we have the Literature section (Documentation/Literature/...) but those pages are arranged by year. But things like FSS span pretty much all the years, even though the one being discussed is '85.

Thoughts, please!

I have not looked at any of this as I have not really needed it as someone posted what I needed information on but could it be done in the FSM way and when it comes to something that covers multi years like FSS have a link that would direct the person to the "all year" information?

This way the information would only need to be posted 1 time and links made with in each year to point to it.

There could a small a note* put on the FSM & FSS pages saying such "*spans multi years".

Dave ----

[Gary Lewis]

Which brings me to a completely different question: Where do we put these documents, like the FSM's, diagnosis, etc?

Currently we have the Literature section (Documentation/Literature/...) but those pages are arranged by year. But things like FSS span pretty much all the years, even though the one being discussed is '85.

Thoughts, please!

I have not looked at any of this as I have not really needed it as someone posted what I needed information on but could it be done in the FSM way and when it comes to something that covers multi years like FSS have a link that would direct the person to the "all year" information?

This way the information would only need to be posted 1 time and links made with in each year to point to it.

There could a small a note* put on the FSM & FSS pages saying such "*spans multi years".

Dave ----

Dave - I'm not sure how to incorporate your suggestion. Basically everything in the FSM should apply to all years save for some things like the YFA carb as it wasn't used in all years. So I'm not sure we need to say anything. Let's wait and see.

And, for y'all to see, we now have the first three sections of the '85 manual on the site. PLEASE go check it out to see what you think. It is in the top level menu and should be easily seen, above.

But here are some questions and comments I'd like you to consider:

• Location: Where should we put it? Right now we have a Literature section and a Reference section.

  Do we need another? (I hope not.) Can it go in Literature?

• Index: If you click on the top level, meaning 1985 Truck Shop Manual, you'll get Ford's wonky index.

  (Wonky because it is not in numeric order.) I've put some hyperlinks in there, but are they necessary?

  Why not just use the menu on the site instead?

• Levels: I've put non-clickable headers in the menu, like "Section 11 - Wheels & Tires", that pop out a sub menu when you hover over them. But some of you don't hover, so does that work for you? Jim?Can you see the lower-level things like General Wheel & Tire Service?

• Multiple Places: The documents that show up in Brakes are also embedded on the page at Documentation/Brakes. But that should not be a problem. It is the same info, but two different instances of it.

Thoughts, please.

[grumpin]

Dave - I'm not sure how to incorporate your suggestion. Basically everything in the FSM should apply to all years save for some things like the YFA carb as it wasn't used in all years. So I'm not sure we need to say anything. Let's wait and see.

And, for y'all to see, we now have the first three sections of the '85 manual on the site. PLEASE go check it out to see what you think. It is in the top level menu and should be easily seen, above.

But here are some questions and comments I'd like you to consider:

• Location: Where should we put it? Right now we have a Literature section and a Reference section.

  Do we need another? (I hope not.) Can it go in Literature?

• Index: If you click on the top level, meaning 1985 Truck Shop Manual, you'll get Ford's wonky index.

  (Wonky because it is not in numeric order.) I've put some hyperlinks in there, but are they necessary?

  Why not just use the menu on the site instead?

• Levels: I've put non-clickable headers in the menu, like "Section 11 - Wheels & Tires", that pop out a sub menu when you hover over them. But some of you don't hover, so does that work for you? Jim?Can you see the lower-level things like General Wheel & Tire Service?

• Multiple Places: The documents that show up in Brakes are also embedded on the page at Documentation/Brakes. But that should not be a problem. It is the same info, but two different instances of it.

Thoughts, please.

Maybe I’m not aware of how you can do this, can you have a manuals section or tab in documentation?

[Gary Lewis]

Maybe I’m not aware of how you can do this, can you have a manuals section or tab in documentation?

We can have a Manuals section. But is a manual not "literature"?

I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just wanting to come up with a clean, logical solution.

[FuzzFace2]

We can have a Manuals section. But is a manual not "literature"?

I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just wanting to come up with a clean, logical solution.

I see "literature" as sales brochures, papers on tires that were in the glove box when new or adds from magazines and the like.

owners manuals would be in with the shop manuals, it has manual on it no?

Now where dose the dealer acc. sheets and towing pamphlet go?

I think Literature.

Dave ----

[Gary Lewis]

We can have a Manuals section. But is a manual not "literature"?

I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just wanting to come up with a clean, logical solution.

I see "literature" as sales brochures, papers on tires that were in the glove box when new or adds from magazines and the like.

owners manuals would be in with the shop manuals, it has manual on it no?

Now where dose the dealer acc. sheets and towing pamphlet go?

I think Literature.

Dave ----

So you are voting for a Manuals section, Dave?

(IOW, you'd vote the same as Dane???? )

[Lima Delta]

So you are voting for a Manuals section, Dave?

(IOW, you'd vote the same as Dane???? )

If it would be relatively straight-forward to do, IMO a "manuals" section would be great.