MakeMyKB - Free Knowledgebase Articles for Blesta Released

MichaelCee · October 2021

Hi LES, I thought I'd make an official thread to track MakeMyKB in the General section so it's indexed and all that.

MakeMyKB is a project that aims to provide free knowledgebase articles for web-hosting companies. The project started around 3 years ago originally but switched hands back and forth and was restarted in August 2021.

A first release is anticipated before the end of the year but currently articles are being developed in Markdown format locally.
There are currently over 70 articles.

What categories will be available?
The knowledgebase pack aims to provide detailed guides in the following categories:

Blesta
CloudFlare
cPanel
DirectAdmin
Domains
PayPal
Plesk
Security
WHMCS
WordPress
Softaculous

How can it be used?
Simply upload the images directory and import the SQL tables via phpMyAdmin and your Blesta knowledgebase will be populated with dozens of pre-written articles.

The project is primarily targeting Blesta but additional ports to other software may be considered.

Visit the website at https://makemykb.com - Thanks for reading!

Edit: See this post for the first release.

MichaelCee · August 2021

Edit: Please see the new discussion thread here.

Thought I’d prematurely post to say I have kindly been given back control of MakeMyKB (some of you might remember this project) and I’ll actually be releasing some content this year.

To set the scene, MakeMyKB is a pack of knowledgebase articles for web hosting customers. It will be available as downloadable database tables for Blesta and completely free to use and modify.

I will be working on the knowledgebase articles through GitHub and publishing them as html/markup files and later I will be pasting those complete articles in to a Blesta installation and adding images.

Hopefully, this could benefit users of other control panels as the articles will be available in a central and I assume quite universal form.

As well as that, community members will be welcome to submit suggestions through GitHub, however that works.

New website soon, GitHub is https://github.com/makemykb/makemykb

I would love to drive some discussion on this project as it was originally started in 2019 and now it’s 2021 and markets have inevitably evolved.

Questions/comments? Let me know!

CamoYoshi · August 2021

Very generous of you to release something like this for free. I hope it isn't freebooted too much and still will have your name attached to it somehow.

rcy026 · August 2021

I really like this idea. If the project gains some momentum, I will see what I can do to contribute.

Ympker · August 2021

Nice to see this hasn't been lost Good luck, mate!

mikho · August 2021

Only fair thing to do as I was given it to continue and develop it.
Sadly, my priorities had to be elsewhere and nothing really good came out of the project, nothing except plans on how it should look.

Wish you alll the best with the project.

MichaelCee · August 2021

Appreciate the positive engagement and I’m excited to get the ball rolling. This new GitHub strategy seems good as I can spend 5 minutes here or there adding a new article or line and only pasting completed articles over to Blesta.

Some content is popping up in the repo, feel free to point out any mistakes or make suggestions.

Website coming in one week.

vpsgeek3333 · August 2021

I wish all the best to you !

visualwebtechno · August 2021

Good luck sir

MichaelCee · October 2021

There's a simple website template at https://makemykb.com/ now.

Took some advice regarding GitHub and will be working on some articles over the coming weeks before doing anything with Blesta.

Currently working on:

Converting all existing GitHub articles into .md format (from .html) and adding formatting (bold for "Step 1." etc and keywords)
Taking screenshots for control panels/websites/etc and uploading them to the GitHub repository.
Adding screenshots to the existing articles (and partial articles)
Finishing existing partial articles

Ympker · October 2021

@MichaelCee said:
There's a simple website template at https://makemykb.com/ now.

Took some advice regarding GitHub and will be working on some articles over the coming weeks before doing anything with Blesta.

Currently working on:

Converting all existing GitHub articles into .md format (from .html) and adding formatting (bold for "Step 1." etc and keywords)

Taking screenshots for control panels/websites/etc and uploading them to the GitHub repository.

Adding screenshots to the existing articles (and partial articles)

Finishing existing partial articles

Well done! Looking good there

armandorg · October 2021

No comment, waiting for this to come out!

MichaelCee · December 2021

Quick development log:
After a few months of downtime the project is back on the board. I have left GitHub due to choices to cut out many third party websites from my life but I’ve finally got Blesta up and running to live preview the articles as they’re released. There should be about 60 right now.

I have not made a download available as of yet because I need to investigate the implications of importing a knowledge base article with an ID that already exists in a Blesta database. Once I’ve confirmed how that works I will make the first download available.

Oh and there’s currently an issue loading the images in. I’ll have it fixed before initial release.

Preview Link: https://preview.makemykb.com/client/plugin/support_manager/knowledgebase/

Ympker · December 2021

Good to know you are still at it! Good luck

MichaelCee · December 2021

@MichaelCee said:

I have not made a download available as of yet because I need to investigate the implications of importing a knowledge base article with an ID that already exists in a Blesta database. Once I’ve confirmed how that works I will make the first download available.

For “easy install” (phpMyAdmin import) the old KB tables need to be deleted so that new ones can be imported, making any previous entries obsolete when using MakeMyKB. This is definitely a flaw but after 3 years of this project being on hold I’d rather get something released than rework it again. I’ll make sure to include that detail in the readme file.

Maybe in the future I’ll create random IDs and a guide to manually import the rows instead.

MichaelCee · December 2021

@MichaelCee said: Oh and there’s currently an issue loading the images in. I’ll have it fixed before initial release.

Images fixed (permissions error) and width="full" changed to class="img-fluid". Will post a download link in the next few days.

MichaelCee · December 2021

You can now download MakeMyKB here: https://preview.makemykb.com/plugin/download_manager/client_main/index/1/

Indecisive about version naming scheme.. what classifies as major and minor in this context?
Currently named as the date. First release is 19-12-2021.
Some images that don't exist are referenced and will be added for the next release.
Releases won't be too often as I would rather save up batches of 30+ completed articles in-between.
NexusBytes affiliate link included on the website. It's hosted by them and there are no other ways to support the project atm.

Do I recommend this for production? Not currently. But certainly take a look if it's something you're interested in!

rcy026 · December 2021

Maybe you could split the download so that it is possible to download only certain categories?
For example, one might be interested in all the articles about linux, but do not want the ones about wordpress or paypal. At this point, it would be fairly easy to just remove them yourself, but if the KB grows it might be a good idea.

MichaelCee · December 2021

Definitely a good idea @rcy026 thank you!

Quick release before the end of the year. Version 28-12-2021.

Total Articles: 101
New categories and articles added for Domains, Linux, phpMyAdmin and Windows.
Nameserver articles and images added for GoDaddy, NameSilo, Porkbun, SiteGround, Namecheap and 123-Reg.
Fixed broken images in Cloudflare category and rewrote some of the articles due to Cloudflare's UI changing.
New articles in the PayPal category for account management, adding/removing cards and updating details.
General tweaks, cleanup and typo corrections.
Uncompressed file size: 2.4MB (previous version 19-12-2021 was 1.4MB).

Production recommendation: It's not quite at the standard that I would personally use yet.
Download link: https://preview.makemykb.com/plugin/download_manager/client_main/index/1/

The plans for 2022 are to just keep putting out content whilst catching up on adding screenshots for the existing articles.

MakeMyKB - Free Knowledgebase Articles for Blesta Released

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