How to study with the help
This page is for anyone who learns Exponential on their own or alongside a course: students, apprentices, career changers and new team members. It explains how the help is organized and gives you a way of studying that turns reading into skill.
Contents
- How the help is organized
- The read, do, check loop
- Study on an installation of your own
- Take notes you will use again
- Review with quizzes
- When a page and the software disagree
- A weekly rhythm
How the help is organized
The help is a set of Markdown pages in the doc/ folder of the kernel, shown in the administration under Help.
Its dashboard lists every page by audience and topic, and its search finds any page
(Getting started).
| Kind of page | What it gives you | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Start pages | A map of one audience's pages | Trainers: start here |
| Task pages | Steps for one job, with what you should see | The layouts editor |
| "How do I" pages | One short answer per question | Manual |
| Guides | Longer step-by-step guides for administrators and developers | Guides |
| Courses | Lessons with objectives, exercises and quizzes, written for trainers | Course catalogue |
| Reference | Settings, template language, glossary | Template language, Glossary |
The pages of this folder point you to the right ones in the right order. You do not need to read the help from start to end.
The read, do, check loop
Most task pages and guides show a command or a click path and then say what you should see ("Expected: ..."). Use that as your study loop:
- Read one section, not a whole page.
- Do it on your study installation, typing the commands yourself rather than pasting them.
- Check the result against the page. If it matches, write one line in your journal. If it does not, find out why before you go on: that is where you learn most.
Example from the installation guide: after
php bin/php/console --version the guide expects a first line reading console (Exponential) 6.0.15stable or the version
you installed. If you see something else, you already have a question worth asking.
Study on an installation of your own
Reading about a content management system without one is like reading about swimming. Install a site that is only yours, where you can break things and start again:
- Your first site: three ways compares the public demo, the one-command install and the setup wizard.
- Resetting and rebuilding your study site shows how to start over.
Never practice on a live site, and never on a site that holds other people's data.
Take notes you will use again
- Keep a study journal (Keeping a study journal): the date, what you did, what you expected, what happened, and the page you used.
- Write the commands that worked in a personal cheat sheet, with one line saying what each does.
- Collect words you did not know and check them in the Glossary for learners.
- Note the release you study on (
php bin/php/console --version). Pages describe a release; your notes should too.
Never write passwords, keys or tokens into notes you share or commit.
Review with quizzes
The trainers' lessons end with a quiz and its answers (Trainers: start here). You may use them on your own:
- Do the lesson's hands-on exercise on your study installation.
- A day later, answer the quiz without looking.
- Check the answers, which cite the help pages, and reread what you missed.
- A week later, answer it again.
Short, spaced reviews keep more than one long session. The Course catalogue shows which course covers which subject.
When a page and the software disagree
Pages are written against a release and checked on real installations, but software changes. When a step does not work:
- Check your release against the one the page names.
- Check that you are on the right siteaccess and signed in with the right role; menus show only what your role allows (Getting started).
- Read
var/log/error.log(Reading logs and errors). - If the page is wrong, tell the project: every page has Edit on GitHub (Improving the help as a student).
A weekly rhythm
| Day | Activity | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Read and do one new section of your learning path | 60 minutes |
| 2 | Repeat it from your notes, without the page | 30 minutes |
| 3 | Work on your current study project | 60 to 90 minutes |
| 4 | Quiz review of last week's lesson | 15 minutes |
| 5 | Read one page outside your path (a guide, a reference page) | 30 minutes |
| Weekend | Optional: answer a question in the community or fix a typo in the help | as you like |
Adjust the times; keep the order. Doing comes before reading more.
Related pages
- Choosing a learning path
- Keeping a study journal
- Study projects: overview
- Students and learners: start here
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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