Re: DevHelp: docset bundles support

[Roman Kashitsyn <romankashicin gmail com>]

Hello Aleksander,

Thank you for fast reply!

> Hey!
>
>
> > There is a feature request on launchpad
> > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/devhelp/+bug/1242467
> >
> > I think it's a really good idea. I've implemented some basic docset bundles
> > support, played with it on my local machine for a week, and found it
> > extremely useful. So I've submitted a pull request to the DevHelp repository
> > on GitHub:
> > https://github.com/GNOME/devhelp/pull/2
> > But the repository looks like a mirror of the gnome repo and is not actively
> > used.
> >
> > So what is the right way to contribute patches?
>
> Bugzilla! :)
Ok, I'll submit an issue.

> https://bugzilla.gnome.org/browse.cgi?product=devhelp
>
> > In addition, I used my own FOSS library to implement the feature
> > (https://github.com/roman-kashitsyn/libdocset). And now I'm in doubts
> > regarding the best way to join the library and the DevHelp together. Should
> > I create a PPA and distribute the library through it? I'm a newbie in the
> > Debian package distribution and appreciate any help.
> >
> > Thank you in advance.
>
> Interestingly, I already talked to the Dash developer last week about
> something related. The idea is that Devhelp could have a set of
> 'external sources', of which one could be the ones exposed by Dash at
> http://kapeli.com/dash. Now, the idea was not to include docset
> support in Devhelp, but instead expose all the Dash docsets as
> docbooks that Devhelp can consume. In addition to that, another
> 'external source' could be a bundle of documentation built for each
> new GNOME release, so that the user can then choose which set of
> documentation to be managed by Devhelp at a given time (kind of
> profiles). So you could have a 'local' profile for the docbooks in
> your system (i.e. API of the libraries that you have installed) plus
> different profiles for e.g. "GNOME 3.10" and "GNOME 3.12". Plus
> another e.g. "Dash" profile if you configure the Dash docbooks as
> external sources.

The profiles idea is nice and there are people who want such kind of 
stuff (see https://github.com/jkozera/zeal/issues/77 for example). But I 
don't quite understand how it's possible to configure Dash docsets as 
external source without the actual docsets supports :)

My implementation is actually converts docset into a DhBook at runtime, 
which (I suppose) is quite close to what you've described.

> Wanted to ask, because I don't know much about docsets, where else are
> docsets used, apart from e.g. Dash?
It seems that the XCode (IDE for Mac OS) is also uses a variation of 
those bundles. Doxygen supports generation of the docset bundles.
The Zeal cross-platform application (http://zealdocs.org/) was created 
to work with docset bundles and it's quite popular (but I don't like 
it's appearance on my GNOME desktop and it's really hard to modify the 
source because of immature code base). I'm sure there are more examples.

The main advantages of docset bundles is that there are many of them and 
most of them are ready for use :)

--
Best regards,
Roman