Re: Gnome Help Browser

[David Merrill <david lupercalia net>]

On Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 11:30:07AM +0800, Malcolm Tredinnick wrote:
> This just leaves the main component, which is displaying the html in a
> widget somehow. Bex has previously suggested using the Gimp help browser
> to do this. I must adamit to being lazy (well, busy) and not having
> looked at that code very much to see if it's easily compatible with
> GNOME. Alternatively, we can either use gtkhtml or gtkhtml2. The former
> is currently used in the help browser and I'm not sure what it's status
> is as a maintained module, but it's not particularly active. The latter
> module is a new beast from the Anders Carlson and friends and is
> possibly not production ready yet (it's been "nearly ready" for a while
> now, but holding your breath will only give you a headache).
> 
> The final option for displaying results is the easy one: assume the user
> has a web browser of their own choice available. Then we just need to
> provide a wrapper so that a call to display GNOME help will ensure the
> document is already in html/css form and pass the appropriate URI to the
> browser. For a simple solution that doesn't require too much extra
> software, this is probably the way to go.

Please, please please. Make it possible to separate the browser and
the back end. I have to be able to read help when I can't get X up. I
have to use Lynx or similar.

I've also been thinking about putting a scrollkeeper-backed help
database at the LDP, as a pilot project. The libraries should support
this if at all possible, even if not in 1.0.

Thanks,

-- 
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                   david lupercalia net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org

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