Almost exactly 3 years ago, we went open source with the OpenUI5 developer documentation: OpenUI5 Developer Guide: Have Your Say!
Next up: SAPUI5!
What is the Open Documentation Initiative?
In a nutshell, the Open Documentation Initiative is SAP’s way of opening up its documentation sets for outside contributions. Here’s how DJ Adams puts it:
Looking at some documentation and you’re not sure that it’s quite hitting the mark? Send us some feedback and start a conversation in the form of an issue.
Found something that doesn’t look quite right, and you know how it could be addressed? Contribute a small piece of content, and start a conversation with us in the form of a pull request.
We’re bringing the content to you, in the form of Markdown resources in repositories on GitHub, where we can all benefit from standard issue and pull request workflow mechanisms that are used in countless collaborative processes.
But let’s hear it from the masterminds themselves – DJ Adams and Jens Haley:
As you can see: It’s never been easier to directly influence the content designed to help you.
Next Pilot: SAPUI5 and SAP Fiori Elements
As I mentioned in the beginning: We’ve been offering this sort of collaboration for the OpenUI5 documentation in the OpenUI5 Demo Kit for 3 years now. Every documentation page has an Edit on GitHub link that takes you directly to the corresponding Markdown file on GitHub. All you need to contribute is a user on github.com – and off you go! This has led to some valuable contributions from the community.
However, the SAPUI5 Demo Kit, including the developer documentation for SAP Fiori elements, hasn’t offered this possibility so far. The Open Documentation Initiative is a great way to change this. So as of SAPUI5 1.107, we are on board as well!
So how does it work?
Easy: If you see something in the developer documentation for SAPUI5 or SAP Fiori elements in the SAPUI5 Demo Kit that you think could be improved, just choose the Edit on GitHub link at the top of the page:
Link to GitHub in the SAPUI5 Demo Kit
This will take you to the Markdown version of this documentation page in the following repository: https://github.com/SAP-docs/sapui5. Here, you can make changes under your github.com user, fork the repository, and create a pull request. For more general feedback, you can also create an issue. We will take over and get back to you.
And that’s it!
After we have implemented your contribution, the corresponding changes will become part of the official SAPUI5 (and OpenUI5 if included) documentation with the next possible release. Any new UI5 release also syncs two GitHub repos (for OpenUI and SAPUI5), so after every release, everything should have the same state.
What’s in it for you?
You can directly influence the content we offer you and other users. If you have a good idea on how to improve our documentation, this is your direct line to us. Sure, we’ve always offered options to provide anonymous feedback, but without the possibility to interact with the contributor, it’s not always easy to transform this into genuine improvements for the documentation.
The new GitHub repository makes this much easier. OpenUI5 has a great community, and a great number of improvements to the framework were suggested by the community. Let’s carry this spirit over to https://github.com/SAP-docs/sapui5!
More Information
- SAPUI5 Demo Kit with the SAPUI5 and SAP Fiori elements developer documentation
- https://github.com/SAP-docs/sapui5 (contribution repository)
- Contribution Guidelines
- SAP BTP Documentation Goes GitHub: Learn About Our New Collaboration Process
Other SAP Products Participating in the Open Documentation Initiative
