Re: jrb's help ideas

[David Merrill <david lupercalia net>]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 03:52:50AM -0400, Jonathan Blandford wrote:
> "Rebecca J. Walter" <rjp mail tele dk> writes:
> 
> > i have one addition.  this help browser should be capable of loading an
> > average help file in under 15 seconds on a typical user machine.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't think anyone wants to wait 25 seconds for a help-browser to
> popup.  Recent versions of nautilus are much improved speed wise.
> Nonetheless, I think that there is likely to be lighter help browser
> available so that people have an option if needed.  That's the point
> behind the spec.

The whole `help browser' concept is flawed. Why can't the help be made
available via http so any web browser can be used? Hell, you could
write it in perl or python if you wanted.

I'm both a gnome and a kde user -- I go back and forth depending
on what I'm doing. I don't want to see my system help changing
depending on which desktop I'm using. I really don't want to learn two
help systems. And, I'm often not using a desktop at all, and I still
need to get to help on the console.

Providing help at the console is *not* *optional*.

We need a system level server that provides access to a help database
that is not so gnome or kde specific. It should be able to serve any
document in the scrollkeeper database transparently to any browser can
supports html and http post/get.

Not only is this faster (lynx is gonna beat anything you can do in a
gui) but also more flexible and powerful.

-- 
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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