Chef wiki in non-PDF form?

Chef Infra (archive)
1

I’m looking to read up on the wiki in my spare time, but on my Nook Color
(it’s easier for me to read when my arthritis is acting up and I need to
lay down). However, the PDF format is… not so good for an ereader.

Is there an alternative form like EPUB or MOBI or such that I could
download, or a script that I could use to generate it instead of the PDF?
That would be greatly appreciated (especially as I’m trying to recover from
having my eyes dilated yesterday; flowable text would work great with being
able to bump up the text size).

–
~~ StormeRider ~~

“Every world needs its heroes […] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that’s just around the corner.”

(from Smallville Season 6x1: “Zod”)

On why I hate the phrase “that’s so
lame”…http://bunnika.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/thats-so-lame/

2

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Morgan Blackthorne
stormerider@gmail.com wrote:

Is there an alternative form like EPUB or MOBI or such that I could
download, or a script that I could use to generate it instead of the PDF?
That would be greatly appreciated (especially as I’m trying to recover from
having my eyes dilated yesterday; flowable text would work great with being
able to bump up the text size).

Not that I know of. The PDF is generated using an Atlassian plugin.
There may be other plugins to generate other formats?

P.S. A much better reference is in the works internally, release date
unknown to me.

Bryan

3

Morgan,

We don’t have anything available internally (at Opscode), but Calibre is an awesome piece of software that I use all of the time for converting PDF -> epub/mobi, etc.

http://calibre-ebook.com/

Thanks,

-Tim

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Morgan Blackthorne wrote:

I’m looking to read up on the wiki in my spare time, but on my Nook Color (it’s easier for me to read when my arthritis is acting up and I need to lay down). However, the PDF format is… not so good for an ereader.

Is there an alternative form like EPUB or MOBI or such that I could download, or a script that I could use to generate it instead of the PDF? That would be greatly appreciated (especially as I’m trying to recover from having my eyes dilated yesterday; flowable text would work great with being able to bump up the text size).

–
~~ StormeRider ~~

“Every world needs its heroes […] They inspire us to be better than we are. And they protect from the darkness that’s just around the corner.”

(from Smallville Season 6x1: “Zod”)
On why I hate the phrase “that’s so lame”… (http://bunnika.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/thats-so-lame/)

4

headdesk I didn’t even think of using Calibre to convert from PDF,
because I’m so used to PDFs being locked down tight. Let me give that a
whirl and see how it goes.

Thanks for the nude of common sense :slight_smile:

–
~~ StormeRider ~~

“Every world needs its heroes […] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that’s just around the corner.”

(from Smallville Season 6x1: “Zod”)

On why I hate the phrase “that’s so lame”…

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:46 AM, Tim Green tgreen@opscode.com wrote:

Morgan,

We don’t have anything available internally (at Opscode), but Calibre is
an awesome piece of software that I use all of the time for converting PDF
-> epub/mobi, etc.

http://calibre-ebook.com/

Thanks,

-Tim

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Morgan Blackthorne wrote:

I’m looking to read up on the wiki in my spare time, but on my Nook Color
(it’s easier for me to read when my arthritis is acting up and I need to
lay down). However, the PDF format is… not so good for an ereader.

Is there an alternative form like EPUB or MOBI or such that I could
download, or a script that I could use to generate it instead of the PDF?
That would be greatly appreciated (especially as I’m trying to recover from
having my eyes dilated yesterday; flowable text would work great with being
able to bump up the text size).

–
~~ StormeRider ~~

“Every world needs its heroes […] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that’s just around the corner.”

(from Smallville Season 6x1: “Zod”)

On why I hate the phrase “that’s so lame”…http://bunnika.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/thats-so-lame/

5

Looks like there's too much formatting; Calibre and the other converters
I've tried tend to choke on it.

I did find this:

I don't know if that's something someone would be able to give a trial of
and see how it looks. My company uses Jira but we're on the OnDemand
platform so custom plugins aren't available to us. I'm not sure if Opscode
is using a self-hosted install of Confliuence or if you guys are also on
OnDemand.

Looking forward to the Chef book coming out next February from ORA.

--
~~ StormeRider ~~

"Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."

(from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")

On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"...

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:49 AM, Morgan Blackthorne stormerider@gmail.comwrote:

headdesk I didn't even think of using Calibre to convert from PDF,
because I'm so used to PDFs being locked down tight. Let me give that a
whirl and see how it goes.

Thanks for the nude of common sense :slight_smile:

--
~~ StormeRider ~~

"Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."

(from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")

On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"...

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:46 AM, Tim Green tgreen@opscode.com wrote:

Morgan,

We don't have anything available internally (at Opscode), but Calibre is
an awesome piece of software that I use all of the time for converting PDF
-> epub/mobi, etc.

http://calibre-ebook.com/

Thanks,

-Tim

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Morgan Blackthorne wrote:

I'm looking to read up on the wiki in my spare time, but on my Nook Color
(it's easier for me to read when my arthritis is acting up and I need to
lay down). However, the PDF format is.... not so good for an ereader.

Is there an alternative form like EPUB or MOBI or such that I could
download, or a script that I could use to generate it instead of the PDF?
That would be greatly appreciated (especially as I'm trying to recover from
having my eyes dilated yesterday; flowable text would work great with being
able to bump up the text size).

--
~~ StormeRider ~~

"Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner."

(from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod")

On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"...http://bunnika.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/thats-so-lame/

6

I’ve tried Calibre on the Chef PDF, and while it struggles valiently,
it also explodes spectacularly. This isn’t an option.

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:46 AM, Tim Green tgreen@opscode.com wrote:

Morgan,

We don’t have anything available internally (at Opscode), but Calibre is an
awesome piece of software that I use all of the time for converting PDF ->
epub/mobi, etc.

http://calibre-ebook.com/

Thanks,

-Tim

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Morgan Blackthorne wrote:

I’m looking to read up on the wiki in my spare time, but on my Nook Color
(it’s easier for me to read when my arthritis is acting up and I need to lay
down). However, the PDF format is… not so good for an ereader.

Is there an alternative form like EPUB or MOBI or such that I could
download, or a script that I could use to generate it instead of the PDF?
That would be greatly appreciated (especially as I’m trying to recover from
having my eyes dilated yesterday; flowable text would work great with being
able to bump up the text size).

–
~~ StormeRider ~~

“Every world needs its heroes […] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that’s just around the corner.”

(from Smallville Season 6x1: “Zod”)

On why I hate the phrase “that’s so lame”…

–
Dr. Ed Morbius
Chief Scientist / Philologist / Robot Wrangler / Powerplant Operator
Krell Power Systems Unlimited

7

A very, very strong second on this. I’m reading on an Android phone,
where PDFs are worse than useless, and ePubs are awesome (plug for the
Moon+Reader, free).

There’s a third-party, non-free plugin for Atlassian to render output
to ePub. Alternatively, if there were a way to start with a
single-page HTML view, and strip much of the cruft (sidebars, etc.)
that accompany the wiki, this might also work.

My own sense is that ePub (or something very much like it) should
supplant PDF as the online documentation standard.

It even has wins over HTML, in that software manages ePub books well,
and tends to conform to end-user preferences for styling rather than
the author’s. It’s a format that’s designed for reading and
readability, not a hybrid information / application platform, as HTML
is rapidly becoming.

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Morgan Blackthorne
stormerider@gmail.com wrote:

I’m looking to read up on the wiki in my spare time, but on my Nook Color
(it’s easier for me to read when my arthritis is acting up and I need to lay
down). However, the PDF format is… not so good for an ereader.

Is there an alternative form like EPUB or MOBI or such that I could
download, or a script that I could use to generate it instead of the PDF?
That would be greatly appreciated (especially as I’m trying to recover from
having my eyes dilated yesterday; flowable text would work great with being
able to bump up the text size).

–
~~ StormeRider ~~

“Every world needs its heroes […] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that’s just around the corner.”

(from Smallville Season 6x1: “Zod”)

On why I hate the phrase “that’s so lame”…

–
Dr. Ed Morbius
Chief Scientist / Philologist / Robot Wrangler / Powerplant Operator
Krell Power Systems Unlimited

8

I just converted to ePub without any issues using Calibre (albeit the formatting doesn’t look that good) - what was your issue? Want me to upload the ePub somewhere for you?
If you’ve got a little bit of extra time, there’s a pretty good ePub editing tool called Sigil that you could clean it up with.

Let me know.

-Tim

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 at 1:34 PM, Edward Morbius wrote:

A very, very strong second on this. I’m reading on an Android phone,
where PDFs are worse than useless, and ePubs are awesome (plug for the
Moon+Reader, free).

There’s a third-party, non-free plugin for Atlassian to render output
to ePub. Alternatively, if there were a way to start with a
single-page HTML view, and strip much of the cruft (sidebars, etc.)
that accompany the wiki, this might also work.

My own sense is that ePub (or something very much like it) should
supplant PDF as the online documentation standard.

It even has wins over HTML, in that software manages ePub books well,
and tends to conform to end-user preferences for styling rather than
the author’s. It’s a format that’s designed for reading and
readability, not a hybrid information / application platform, as HTML
is rapidly becoming.

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Morgan Blackthorne
<stormerider@gmail.com (mailto:stormerider@gmail.com)> wrote:

I’m looking to read up on the wiki in my spare time, but on my Nook Color
(it’s easier for me to read when my arthritis is acting up and I need to lay
down). However, the PDF format is… not so good for an ereader.

Is there an alternative form like EPUB or MOBI or such that I could
download, or a script that I could use to generate it instead of the PDF?
That would be greatly appreciated (especially as I’m trying to recover from
having my eyes dilated yesterday; flowable text would work great with being
able to bump up the text size).

–
~~ StormeRider ~~

“Every world needs its heroes […] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that’s just around the corner.”

(from Smallville Season 6x1: “Zod”)

On why I hate the phrase “that’s so lame”…

–
Dr. Ed Morbius
Chief Scientist / Philologist / Robot Wrangler / Powerplant Operator
Krell Power Systems Unlimited

9

The formatting was the issue. I’m not trying to use the wiki as a portable
reference, I’m trying to read it like a book (since the only book out there
I can find is the Test Driven one which isn’t really a good intro to using
Chef from what I’ve skimmed so far).

Alternatively, a mobile-friendly view for Confluence would work, too.
On Aug 2, 2012 11:10 AM, “Tim Green” tgreen@opscode.com wrote:

I just converted to ePub without any issues using Calibre (albeit the
formatting doesn’t look that good) - what was your issue? Want me to
upload the ePub somewhere for you?
If you’ve got a little bit of extra time, there’s a pretty good ePub
editing tool called Sigil that you could clean it up with.

Let me know.

-Tim

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 at 1:34 PM, Edward Morbius wrote:

A very, very strong second on this. I’m reading on an Android phone,
where PDFs are worse than useless, and ePubs are awesome (plug for the
Moon+Reader, free).

There’s a third-party, non-free plugin for Atlassian to render output
to ePub. Alternatively, if there were a way to start with a
single-page HTML view, and strip much of the cruft (sidebars, etc.)
that accompany the wiki, this might also work.

My own sense is that ePub (or something very much like it) should
supplant PDF as the online documentation standard.

It even has wins over HTML, in that software manages ePub books well,
and tends to conform to end-user preferences for styling rather than
the author’s. It’s a format that’s designed for reading and
readability, not a hybrid information / application platform, as HTML
is rapidly becoming.

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Morgan Blackthorne
stormerider@gmail.com wrote:

I’m looking to read up on the wiki in my spare time, but on my Nook Color
(it’s easier for me to read when my arthritis is acting up and I need to
lay
down). However, the PDF format is… not so good for an ereader.

Is there an alternative form like EPUB or MOBI or such that I could
download, or a script that I could use to generate it instead of the PDF?
That would be greatly appreciated (especially as I’m trying to recover from
having my eyes dilated yesterday; flowable text would work great with being
able to bump up the text size).

–
~~ StormeRider ~~

“Every world needs its heroes […] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that’s just around the corner.”

(from Smallville Season 6x1: “Zod”)

On why I hate the phrase “that’s so lame”…

–
Dr. Ed Morbius
Chief Scientist / Philologist / Robot Wrangler / Powerplant Operator
Krell Power Systems Unlimited

10

Confluence version 4.3 has mobile-friendly.

The Opscode wiki is 3.5.

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 2:21 PM, Morgan Blackthorne
stormerider@gmail.com wrote:

The formatting was the issue. I’m not trying to use the wiki as a portable
reference, I’m trying to read it like a book (since the only book out there
I can find is the Test Driven one which isn’t really a good intro to using
Chef from what I’ve skimmed so far).

Alternatively, a mobile-friendly view for Confluence would work, too.

On Aug 2, 2012 11:10 AM, “Tim Green” tgreen@opscode.com wrote:

I just converted to ePub without any issues using Calibre (albeit the
formatting doesn’t look that good) - what was your issue? Want me to
upload the ePub somewhere for you?
If you’ve got a little bit of extra time, there’s a pretty good ePub
editing tool called Sigil that you could clean it up with.

Let me know.

-Tim

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 at 1:34 PM, Edward Morbius wrote:

A very, very strong second on this. I’m reading on an Android phone,
where PDFs are worse than useless, and ePubs are awesome (plug for the
Moon+Reader, free).

There’s a third-party, non-free plugin for Atlassian to render output
to ePub. Alternatively, if there were a way to start with a
single-page HTML view, and strip much of the cruft (sidebars, etc.)
that accompany the wiki, this might also work.

My own sense is that ePub (or something very much like it) should
supplant PDF as the online documentation standard.

It even has wins over HTML, in that software manages ePub books well,
and tends to conform to end-user preferences for styling rather than
the author’s. It’s a format that’s designed for reading and
readability, not a hybrid information / application platform, as HTML
is rapidly becoming.

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Morgan Blackthorne
stormerider@gmail.com wrote:

I’m looking to read up on the wiki in my spare time, but on my Nook Color
(it’s easier for me to read when my arthritis is acting up and I need to
lay
down). However, the PDF format is… not so good for an ereader.

Is there an alternative form like EPUB or MOBI or such that I could
download, or a script that I could use to generate it instead of the PDF?
That would be greatly appreciated (especially as I’m trying to recover
from
having my eyes dilated yesterday; flowable text would work great with
being
able to bump up the text size).

–
~~ StormeRider ~~

“Every world needs its heroes […] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that’s just around the corner.”

(from Smallville Season 6x1: “Zod”)

On why I hate the phrase “that’s so lame”…

–
Dr. Ed Morbius
Chief Scientist / Philologist / Robot Wrangler / Powerplant Operator
Krell Power Systems Unlimited

11

Formatting in my case what utterly fouled up. Blank pages, lots of
missing text, etc. Certainly not usable.

I tried this on both Ubuntu 11.10 and Debian testing/unstable within
the past month or two.

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Tim Green tgreen@opscode.com wrote:

I just converted to ePub without any issues using Calibre (albeit the
formatting doesn’t look that good) - what was your issue? Want me to
upload the ePub somewhere for you?
If you’ve got a little bit of extra time, there’s a pretty good ePub editing
tool called Sigil that you could clean it up with.

Let me know.

-Tim

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 at 1:34 PM, Edward Morbius wrote:

A very, very strong second on this. I’m reading on an Android phone,
where PDFs are worse than useless, and ePubs are awesome (plug for the
Moon+Reader, free).

There’s a third-party, non-free plugin for Atlassian to render output
to ePub. Alternatively, if there were a way to start with a
single-page HTML view, and strip much of the cruft (sidebars, etc.)
that accompany the wiki, this might also work.

My own sense is that ePub (or something very much like it) should
supplant PDF as the online documentation standard.

It even has wins over HTML, in that software manages ePub books well,
and tends to conform to end-user preferences for styling rather than
the author’s. It’s a format that’s designed for reading and
readability, not a hybrid information / application platform, as HTML
is rapidly becoming.

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Morgan Blackthorne
stormerider@gmail.com wrote:

I’m looking to read up on the wiki in my spare time, but on my Nook Color
(it’s easier for me to read when my arthritis is acting up and I need to lay
down). However, the PDF format is… not so good for an ereader.

Is there an alternative form like EPUB or MOBI or such that I could
download, or a script that I could use to generate it instead of the PDF?
That would be greatly appreciated (especially as I’m trying to recover from
having my eyes dilated yesterday; flowable text would work great with being
able to bump up the text size).

–
~~ StormeRider ~~

“Every world needs its heroes […] They inspire us to be better than we
are. And they protect from the darkness that’s just around the corner.”

(from Smallville Season 6x1: “Zod”)

On why I hate the phrase “that’s so lame”…

–
Dr. Ed Morbius
Chief Scientist / Philologist / Robot Wrangler / Powerplant Operator
Krell Power Systems Unlimited

–
Dr. Ed Morbius
Chief Scientist / Philologist / Robot Wrangler / Powerplant Operator
Krell Power Systems Unlimited

12

(several responses in-line)

On Aug 2, 2012, at 11:23 AM, Mike wrote:

Confluence version 4.3 has mobile-friendly.

The Opscode wiki is 3.5.

I’ll see about putting into the upgrade queue, thanks!

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 2:21 PM, Morgan Blackthorne
stormerider@gmail.com wrote:

The formatting was the issue. I’m not trying to use the wiki as a portable
reference, I’m trying to read it like a book (since the only book out there
I can find is the Test Driven one which isn’t really a good intro to using
Chef from what I’ve skimmed so far).

We’re actually working on a refactor of our documentation right now that will be a lot more readable. It will be a little while before we release, but I wanted you to know we’re taking it seriously and working on it.

-Jesse