Realtime documentation solution from Docstell.com
3 min readDocument organizer with diagram editor by DocStell, a new online software solution for organizing software specifications. Today’s software programming has become an extremly complicated thing to organize. Let’s start with the basics: The markdown feature in Docstell is very simple to use. When a text zone is added to a node you can start typing your markdown right away. When leaving the edit area the text is automatically formatted. The idea with markdown is that it will save you a lot of time when formatting your texts. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, which is then converted to valid HTML. Instead of getting frustrated about how a lot of common word processors format your text in every way but the one you want, markdown is very predictable and easy to learn.
Docstell is also adding functionality to upload files to a node. You can upload any type of file and share with you team or keep it in a private node. Just drag it from you computer and drop it on the node you want to attach it to. They added a preview area that makes it possible to preview files adjacent to your other information. You can view for example pdf, docx, xlsx, csv, txt, png, jpeg and mpeg4 files. If you for example receive a specification in a pdf file format you keep this file here together with the rest of the documentation and will easily be able to preview it and let all your team have access to it.
Builtin diagram editor lets you keep vital information up to date in a snap. Slack integration: Connect the workspace in Docstell with a channel in Slack to receive notifications when someone is commenting. Markdown: Builtin markdown editor lets you format your texts efficiently. Docstell uses Github-flavored Markdown (GFM) with our own modifications to how the headers are being presented in the Docstell workspace. See more details on Software Project Organizer Solution.
Slack integration was recently added to Docstell. This lets you get alerted in your designed Slack channel when a person in your team is commenting your documentation. From the message in Slack you get a link back to the node with the comment in Docstell, this makes it convenient to answer the question in the right context and to build up the knowledge base where it should be. If you don’t use Slack or want to be notified by email we added functionality to mention a user in the comment. Use the @ sign to get a list of users that belongs to the workspace. If this user is not online an email is sent that tells the user that there is a message waiting to be answered. You can configure if emails should be sent in the new user settings dialog.
How to avoid software documentation hell? The key to this is that it must be possible to hide information that is in the way to get the big picture but still be there to be found when it’s the details that you need. A good search function is vital of course, but it must not hinder you from seeing the information that might be adjacent to your search terms and crucial for your understanding. When everybody is on the same page you will notice that you can start to have fewer meetings and still be able to take better decisions.
Go simple, make it efficient and start to benefit from the power of having your documentation organised and accessible for your whole team. All the time. Keeping software documentation simple and super easy to update will prevent your team to invent new ways of adding specs in new formats and put it in places where it is hard to find. See extra info at docstell.com.