PJRC and Teensy(s) need a Wiki

I agree with the above. It just needs someone from PJRC to set it up, and provide contributors with the ability to make and edit pages. The community is capable of keeping the information contained within, updated. I'd be happy to lend any and all assistance I can, as I'm sure many others are prepared to. It's what open-source is all about, I guess.

There's so much information available, but it can be very difficult to sift through and find, even here on the forums. Centralising and consolidating the wealth of information contained here, will help developers and users immensely.
 
I've been thinking about the doxygen thing and it's occurred to me that it may be better to fork a few of Paul's libraries and add at least a few of the comments that make using doxygen that much more worthwhile and see if Paul will accept pull requests full of that stuff - if he won't I don't blame him, what really occurred to me is that even just the proof-reading alone could set Paul back years in development terms; this may be stating it over-dramatically but I was pondering why Paul hasn't posted to this thread and these things occurred to me in these terms so, I just posted it (it is late here, hopefully this is one of my midnight posts I make just before toddling off to bed that I don't cringe over tomorrow :D)

That pretty much applies to a wiki too, potentially just another sink-hole for Paul's time - perhaps not though;


If a wiki was hosted on a domain name that PJRC don't own and clearly badged "Don't blame PJRC, this wiki belongs to the community!" then it shouldn't cause PJRC too much angst, tho I've a suspicion we'd have to be reasonably careful not to let anything all that erroneous hang out on it because I bet it would eat into their time eventually - keeping membership of the wiki strictly limited should help in this regard (I'd best not edit it too much imho, foot in mouth (fingers in knots?) all over).



If enough people agree about starting a community wiki on a new domain name (which the founders will agree on and then chip in a bit each for) then I am happy to host it free until I am no longer able to host anything - I'm happy enough to 'chip in a bit' (I was thinking in terms a dollar each, if $15 Australia I can pay a domain name for a year here) for someone else to host it too.
 
I thought that thread of yours was a good idea at the time, well it was ,but it isn't as strong an idea as a wiki.

I could just chuck a wiki up on a domain name and hope for the best but I've done similar before and it wasn't fun reasonably quickly - just 5 of the stronger contributors to this forum speak up and say they want it and will participate and I will do it - I will even foot the bill for the domain name's (I would post a suggestion of the domain name but if it is posted publicly before it is paid for then someone else can steal the domain name so I won't for now) first year of registration (and probably its lifetime).

Come on, just five of you! Make a clear statement in this thread that you really want a Teensy wiki, give it a couple of days for PJRC to state an objection, and I will put it up. (Prefer if PJRC gave at least basic approval but this thread is public and on their server so I will take lack of protest as near enough ;)).

Edit: TWO! just two of you and I can consider kicking it off - if we make a decent enough job of it it will attract the others.
 
Last edited:
I've thought a wiki would be a good idea for some time. I do think some form of control to prevent the usual spam-bots from posting would be useful. I know several of the things I post (particularly "yes you must use external pull-ups for i2c on a teensy") seem to be the same every so often. And the board support links would be useful (though Onehorse makes it hard to keep it up to date).
 
If I kick off a wiki for Teensy related info the membership will be very limited indeed - initially only people that PJRC chose for the Teensy LC beta group (who show an interest) will be allowed to join, at some point membership should probably open up and I think the criteria will end up something along the lines of '100 reasonably rational posts on forum.pjrc.com and/or less than 1/3rd of current membership (or people who became admin after joining perhaps) blackball the applicant.
 
Hoping to see Paul's input . . . I'll just note: this thread has a high visit count . . . maybe it is me looking . . .

robsoles - I think the wiki as I've seen on noted platforms could be an awesome addition offering one search&click location of the 'right & current' info. But without PJRC sign on the accuracy and maintenance will be made harder and the separate web info would be what people have to wade through.
MichaelM - indeed simple things like 'PullUps' slow not only the OP down - but distract you repeating yourself.


JBeale - that is a good list of select topics (MichaelM noted it) boiled up that search would likely skip or bury.

> I noticed your IDE list doesn't touch on the VisualMicro that is hopefully back to working per a recent thread.

> The one issue that caught me for weeks was 'Program button'. I wrongly assumed it was 'reset' - but in assuming I noticed if you fast or slow tap it you can get a reset, even OTG on Android. This isn't 'By Design' supported behavior and it was some time before that became clear. A good 'button' thread might help others - but I never saw it and the web text still doesn't speak to me.

> My button 'understanding' problem made worse having two Teensy units active maybe? [and the fact that the early IDE 1.6.x broke VERIFY behavior] I was happy when I found TyQt awesome for multi (or single) Teensy case. I have re-posted that a few times as it allows monitor on multiple channels and halts UPLOAD as it hides the Teensy until a 'Button' hits. I need to install the latest LC aware build, bit one handy thing it is shows when 'windows' orphans a COM port.

> My other most re-posted helper is 'QBlink' setup and use - particularly how it associates with a conditional while on Serial startup so sketches pause for Serial connect - but start the loop() unlike some of the sketches. Also because it quickly shows a heartbeat powering/blinking the LED so folks can see they have an active sketch and a working Teensy. As a bonus it incorporates WriteFast and ReadFast.

#define qBlink() (digitalWriteFast(LED_BUILTIN, !digitalReadFast(LED_BUILTIN) ))
 
Hoping to see Paul's input . . . I'll just note: this thread has a high visit count . . . maybe it is me looking . . .

robsoles - I think the wiki as I've seen on noted platforms could be an awesome addition offering one search&click location of the 'right & current' info. But without PJRC sign on the accuracy and maintenance will be made harder and the separate web info would be what people have to wade through.


...
I do not entirely agree; whereas my idea is to limit authorship to more advanced (and prefer prolific) posters from this forum is aimed at decreasing erroneous information being written in it, it is also aimed at decreasing the amount of effort PJRC need make toward it - if we proceed to making a community forum and nobody from PJRC even joins it then I won't blame them; otoh if Paul or Robin does join and I have the 'controls' they will have admin rights shortly after I notice they join.
 
Edit: TWO! just two of you and I can consider kicking it off - if we make a decent enough job of it it will attract the others.

I'd be willing to help where i can. I've setup a bunch of mediawiki sites with all types plugins at my soon to be former job.
 
Counting you as one duff, glad to hear I will have a friend if (proceeding and) setting up the backend is more challenging than I expect :)

btw: my last post, not disagreeing about wanting Paul/PJRC's input - just about burdening them with work just coz we want a wiki.
 
I'll be glad to help as well. I'm definitely not a microcontroller expert or a EE but I've been developing software professionally for decades and I've been reading pretty much every post here since 2013.
 
I do not entirely agree;

robsoles - I disagree that we don't agree. The whole point of the Wiki would be to offload PJRC from bulk work - as best as a core group of die-hards were willing to do.

I was making a finer point - back to my OP - if Paul saw that linked post as existing in a current Wiki item - he would link it and not re-type it. If the related WiKi entry didn't cover the user query the Wiki could be extended/clarified to answer the question and the the wiki entry linked.

Win-Win-Win : New Query answered - Paul saved time - Permanent searchable record confirmed to be current and responsive.

If Paul doesn't get signed on - this subtle dynamic Wiki improvement would be lost in the forum chaff - multiply this by 5 a day or 50 a month and that is the nature of the divergence I saw.
 
Last edited:
I would hope after an initial period there is a way for newer people to join the ranks of wiki editors. Otherwise it risks alienating the new users it is set up for. Every organization needs infusion of new users with new ideas that us oldsters never dreamed of, or the organization dies (get off my lawn kid).
 
If I spawn the wiki on my server then it will be open to new membership but, while I remain with any say over it, there will be a way for new members to join but it won't just be 'click the link in the email we have sent you and then you can rape and pillage our wiki...' - there will always be at least some review of applications by a human and while I mention this I should probably point out that I do not volunteer to be the sole admin of any such thing, I will be looking for volunteers to take admin roles on it pretty shortly after kicking it off, if I get to kick it off.

I am tempted to just count you (in) Michael, may I? (that would make 2! :D)

@defragster:
fair enough - I see your point tho I don't see PJRC's participation as any sort of 'crux of the matter'; Paul/PJRC put their stuff 'up' for us to use as we wish, the way I see it we can put something up and they can use it if they wish (take control of it any time if I am in any way controlling it).

Of course any such wiki would benefit immensely from PJRC participation but, to be brutally honest, I do not so much want them to participate while it might detract from what they are already looking after for us - they come around to it in their own time, without us bugging them about it (or leaving too much erroneous nonsense on display for them to ignore), and that should work out excellently for the best, for more parties (at least), imho.
 
Last edited:
One thing that could be cool is also setup a blog for people that have written libraries for the teeny where they can delve deeper into how it works.

The hardest thing I saw from setting up these sites is getting the wiki format right. I found it best to first to develop a structure on how topics are laid out and hopefully everyone who contributes will adhere too. The key is to have a simple way to get the info you want without digging through layers and layers of info.

Is this something that is just for answering already asked questions or is more focused on particular hardware/software? The latter seems to travel more into Paul's domain (at least with hardware) and probably requires some oversight by him to make sure the information is correct.
 
I see use of a WiKi as a supplement to use of Doxygen within the code. (or equiv. for self-documenting code - so there's no need to duplicate effort.
 
Good point on duplicate info but what about hardware? I'm not a big fan of a purely Doxygen site, that seems like a separate project that paul would have to be heavily involved in which is against the reason of doing this wiki? I see it as answering common tripping points for new users or to expand on topics that have been solved by the community?
 
@duff: Agree in the majority, suggest [strikethru]we[/strikethru] authors must be as careful as possible to simply avoid posting potential nonsense. I am reasonably certain that just keeping the editing membership of the wiki to people who have demonstrated sense and understanding over given topics (tho relying on them to not post/edit anything they are not deadly sure of) should keep it reasonably good.

The way I see it most people just want a wiki so that a greater expanse of documentation for Teensy related materials can be taken care of by not just the individuals writing the libraries or providing the hardware but also by others who have dealt with the software and/or hardware and gained a good enough understanding of it to help others with some or other comment, or fuller how-to or such like - errata and notes from some contributors would be brilliant, even the best of us may post things that need vetting by the others tho.

If I pay for a domain name just to put wiki.<domain-name>.<tld> into play I would most likely put a placeholder at www.<domain-name>.<tld> indicating that expressions of interest from makers and bloggers alike, willing to focus on Teensy, are welcome with a view to kicking off the blog you mention.

Structure and topology of the website are important details, to an extent we could make the root 'Teensy' and have subs of hardware, libraries, IDEs, well-known-projects, and plenty else just not leaping into my foreground conscious right now - this should be an early discussion point for anybody agreeing to found this wiki with me.

I'd really like a wiki for Teensy (centralised blogging platform for Teensy lovers is very like-able for me too) and I really have the power to spawn a wiki and the power to host it for quite some time to come - absolutely no interest in lording anything over anybody and I'd feel pretty stupid ignoring (or just saying outright 'no's to) any of the excellent contributors on this forum, just in case this is much concern to any readers.
 
Last edited:
@robsoles, I'm glad you are willing to break ground on this, I'm willing to donate if there is way?
 
No need yet duff, somebody else has written such in a PM that I have taken them as the second eager participant (aside from) me and have committed to buying a domain name, I will probably buy it inside of 12 hours after making this post so if you have suggestions what you would like me to consider using please don't hesitate to PM me - anybody aside from the two I have already taken as 'signed up' who sends me a PM regarding the domain name will be assumed 'participant'...

I have a VPS from a mob called Web24, it is currently burdened with about 5% of its actual capacity and it is going to cost me the same right up till I (purchase) increase (to) its capacity - $15 (extra) a year for a domain seems very little to pay, I want this wiki (and for it to succeed as much as possible without burdening PJRC (or as little as possible)) plenty more than $15.- P.A. worth so don't worry for now.

It will take a LOT of traffic and stuff to necessitate a capacity increase on that server, far away off at this point to ignore imho.
 
As far as a blog - I think the Forum is a great place to present and interact and made Teensy what it is. Neither Doxygen nor the Wiki would change that for one off help and growing ideas.

The wiki indeed needs a good start and layout - that's why I wanted to see some format feedback maybe get the first take on it from Paul.
 
direction from Paul would be great but otoh; it may be a month before you, duff, and I (and any others who successfully join us), agree on the overall layout - just imagine all the time just trying to provide this direction could steal from Paul.

It is just a few decisions, mostly relatively simple ones - I've reasonable confidence that we can make a good wiki of it without burdening PJRC if we do not rush and just put enough thought into it; the more sane and rational thinkers that join the better, of course :)
 
I like the idea of a "friends of teensy" wiki site that is community driven, something organic. If it's a flop, so what, at least we tried though all the great nuggets of information that are buried in this forum could use some light.
 
Indeed if it can condense/expose the secrets of Teensy that would be a good thing. Helping people one at a time is good I get to meet the coolest people these days (in real life), but having software I made shipped by the millions [now defunct except in the ghost of monthly updates] - I find the group help doing the right thing once rewarding.

rob and duff you guys each have been here about as many months as I have weeks. I'll follow your lead to see if we can't string something together. You know how Paul works better than I do - it seems he jumps in when something is amiss ... 48 hours and counting . . .

A wiki could have helped reduce my post count and help more folks at the same time - and let me stay on track with what I am wanting to do. And I see that 10x over for Paul's time and the reach of Teensy if it gets easier to start up with and go farther faster.

If Doxygen works out that would be awesome to not have to fire up my long forgotten editor searching for clues where 10 unrelated libraries hit on the same function_XXX() or worse yet searching for a function you don't know exists.

These two things combined as noted represent the best pre-debugging and code review resource to get the programming part started and right in the first place.
 
Back
Top