Re: The Ultimate Help System

[Naba Kumar <kh_naba yahoo com>]

Laszlo Kovacs wrote:

> > >       What I'd recommend doing is having a central database that is online and
> > > each program will come with its own documentation.  Then the database will
> > > have archives of all the documentation, and will have errata on the docs with
> > > the fixes applied to the online documentation.  So the user will select what
> > > version they got, and then it'll display the latest documentation for that
> > > version.
> > >       Comments?
> >
> > Sounds like scrollkeeper. :-)
>
> That was my first impression, but it doesnt I think:-) If you have a
> database like this set up with OMF metadata then Scrollkeeper would
> install it on your Scrollkeeper compatible help browser. So they would
> probably fit together rather than being the same.
>

Talking big things when you don't even have a tool to browse properly man/info pages
locally. (Or has there already been one, just let me know. I will drop the project.)

Ok, I will handle the local stuffs. Please consider the following things.

1)  I'm going to build a Gnome Help Search Tool (GHST), that will be very smart
    (such as remembering the recent searches in cache etc .. ), aprospos,
    context search (??) etc etc. I've already implemented in my mind. Just
    left to do the coding. (Implementing for online will be in the TODO list).

2) Trouble with point #1:
    How to display the resulting pages when the user
    selects the search result in the list? Gnome Help Brower (GHB) seems useless
    (try info "(libc)Variable Arguments Input",  for going directly to the info
node).

3) GHB seems to have bonobo (or Orbit, I'm not sure) capabilities,
    but doesn't seem to work properly. Displaying should in the single
   window (How to connect externally to a single GHB window?
    I am unable to find a way or there is no way with GHB).

4) Considering the above facts, Should I go for internal window
    for displaying the pages?

5) Trouble with point #4:
    I would be reinventing many wheels which GHB has already
    invented.

6) Solution to point #5:
    Make the GHST part of GHB or vise versa.

7) Troble with point #6:
    No, componentization will be there. And this is not
    good when Bonobo is getting so fast.
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That was about the search tool. Now come to Gnome Apps Helps:

1) Better indexing format for Apps helps (Current use of Html file
for the indexing looks too lame). Using XML format for this
index file would be a good idea.

2) Providing the seaching indices (Just like info page nodes).

3) If I am going to do these, it will not be very soon. :-)

--

Regards,
-Naba

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