Writing tutorials and posts for the community
When you solved something that took you a day, a write-up can save the next person that day.
Contents
- Choosing the place
- A structure that works
- Test every step
- Licensing your writing
- Naming things correctly
Choosing the place
| Your text is | Put it on |
|---|---|
| A short trick or a reference note | eZpedia (Contributing to eZpedia) |
| A tutorial or an article | Share (Publishing on Share and Projects) |
| The solution to a forum question | The forum thread itself |
| A correction to the official help | A pull request (Contributing documentation and help pages) |
| Your own opinion or experience | Your own blog, linked from the forums |
A structure that works
- What you will build or solve, in one or two sentences, with a screenshot of the result.
- Who it is for and what they need to know first.
- Requirements: the Exponential version, extensions, PHP version, setup you tested on.
- Steps, numbered, one action each, with the exact commands or settings.
- How to check it worked.
- What can go wrong and how to fix it.
- Sources: the help pages and files you relied on.
The detailed guide is Writing a tutorial that works; for posts, Writing a blog post.
Test every step
Follow your own tutorial on a fresh test installation before you publish it. SQLite makes that quick (Getting started). Steps that worked on your long-lived development site often depend on something you configured months ago.
Licensing your writing
Say under which license others may reuse your text. If you quote or adapt the help, it is under the GNU FDL 1.3 or later and your adaptation must keep that license (Free documentation, Citing sources and licensing your writing).
Naming things correctly
- The product is Exponential. Use the old name only for history, in the past tense.
- 7x is the company; the Exponential Foundation is the nonprofit.
- Do not call your tutorial "official" (Claims you must not make).
- Short reference: Naming rules quick card.
Related pages
- Helping others in the community
- Writing a tutorial that works
- Writing a community case study
- Keeping help accurate
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
Become an Exponential Partner
Partners share their information, provide funding, contribute back and develop the products with us, and that is how Exponential grows. A partner website and dashboard are planned for mid-2027: please become a partner today to speed up our growth rate and land new features faster.