Version 0.21.0 of Maven: The Definitive Guide has been released. There are no significant content additions to this release. The biggest change in this release is a slight adjustment to how the book is being published online.
- Sections are now published as single pages
- Each Section has a reasonable URL (no sections named ch03s03.html)
- Pages are centered, have a fixed width, but lack horizontal borders
- The font is Georgia, and you'll notice that it is a bit bigger than the old site's copy
- I've limited the width of the copy to 600px to ease reading
- In general, I've reduced the distractions on the page. No more blog sidebar (we're looking into a better, more efficient way to target related content at the moment)
Now, every time we change formatting of the book there are bound to be people who like the change and people who disagree with the change. My primary motivation for making this change was to make each page more relevant, more accessible and "addressable" from the outside world. With each chapter being published as a massive web page, it made it more difficult for search engines and people to find concise answers to questions. When I search for "Maven POM build element", I prefer to see a shorter, more relevant page. If you like it, enjoy. If you don't, give it a week, it might grow on you. If you are looking for something easier to read, download the PDF or purchase a copy of the book.
If you use Maven, and you haven't checked out The Definitive Guide, you should take some time to read it online or pick up a hardcopy. While this particular revision doesn't focus on additional content, many of the changes in this release were made to facilitate the rapid expansion of a few of these sections over the coming months. We're far from through with this title, and you should expect see even more documentation in the coming months.
Some possibilities over the next few months: splitting the current Definitive Guide into multiple books or spinning off some of the Nexus sections to a book focused on repository management. The development of a book focused on advanced Maven use with expanded sections on plugin development. We're currently thinking about what would best serve the community, and if you have any ideas for what you would like to see next, we would encourage you to submit these ideas with our Get Satisfaction page for The Definitive Guide.
This is just the beginning.
Note: There's a rendering issue in Safari. We're working on it. (Update: Fixed)
