From miguel@erandi.helixcode.com Fri May 12 17:52:43 2000
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To: gnome-hackers@nuclecu.unam.mx, gnome-devel-list@gnome.org,
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Subject: Help Browsing in GNOME
From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@helixcode.com>
Date: 12 May 2000 13:51:40 -0400
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Hello guys,
Today on #gnome we were talking about the help browser in GNOME,
and the new developments that went into Nautilus to provide a nice,
fully featured Help Browser.
This is the status of various things:
1. The new help browser in Nautilus is not being maintained by
anyone.
2. The new help browser depends on Nautilus, which is not an
easy beast to get compiled, hence, no work is being done by
anyone for the moment.
3. Eazel has not allocated hacker time to work on that, so the
nautilus-based help browser is effectively on a different
schedule than Nautilus.
Here are some ideas (I will use letter to not confuse you all now):
a. It is not hard to write a nice help browser, it just
requires a lot of love. Consider the panel, today it is
basically the same panel we had a year ago, but still,
trough a lot of love, lots of careful iterative
improvements, and lots of little changes, the new panel has
become not only a great tool to use, but a visually
pleasant tool.
b. I would like to use the existing "gnome-help-browser" base,
replace it with GtkHTML, incorporate Jonathan's great work
for Docbook->HTML.
c. I would like to improve Jonathan's Docbook translation tool
so it can also handle reference-like manuals (all of the
GNOME api is in Docbook format, and we could render
those).
d. Include the code from testgtkhtml into gnome-help-browser
to give it some love.
So the core idea is to incorporate the salvageable pieces of code
from the hyperbola project in Nautilus into either a separeate module,
or gnome-core HEAD (after the 1.2 release) that does not require
Nautilus.
Of course, we do want to keep the Nautilus support, but this can
be nicely split into a separate file that only gets compiled/linked if
Nautilus libraries are detected, and hence a Bonobo/Nautilus component
is provided at that point.
So we need a motivated hacker to work on this. This is not about
making source code beautiful, it is about making a functional
application, and giving users a better help system than we have now.
Various tasks can be identified:
1. Create the new module: either use testgtkhtml as the "base"
for the help browser, or the existing GNOME help browser.
Figure this out.
1.a. If the help browser is chosen, then incorporate
tesgtkhtml neworking features into GNOME help browser
(kill the ugly lynx -dump hack from there).
1.b. If testgtkhtml is used, add a cache, add handlers for
"man:", "info:", "docbook:". This might be easier to
do.
2. Add support for the new help browser to keep track of
"selections" that the user has underlined in a page (for
underlining stuff on it, and saving this across visits, a
very cool feature TkMan used to have).
3. Add a comprehensive search facility that would search
across man, info, etc. Lets start with "simple" and add on
top of that.
4. Add Nautilus hookups as a separate compilation module.
5. Improve Jonathan's Docbook to HTML conversor.
6. Integrate Jonathan's Docbook to HTML into the system.
So, who has the time, and wants to do this?
Miguel.
From mjs@eazel.com
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To: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@helixcode.com>
Cc: gnome-hackers@nuclecu.unam.mx, gnome-devel-list@gnome.org,
gnome-announce-list@gnome.org, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Help Browsing in GNOME
References: <m38zxfodw3.fsf@erandi.helixcode.com>
From: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@eazel.com>
Date: 13 May 2000 20:44:16 -0700
In-Reply-To: Miguel de Icaza's message of "12 May 2000 13:51:40 -0400"
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Miguel de Icaza <miguel@helixcode.com> writes:
> Hello guys,
>
> Today on #gnome we were talking about the help browser in GNOME,
> and the new developments that went into Nautilus to provide a nice,
> fully featured Help Browser.
>
> This is the status of various things:
>
> 1. The new help browser in Nautilus is not being maintained by
> anyone.
This does in fact s***.
> 2. The new help browser depends on Nautilus, which is not an
> easy beast to get compiled, hence, no work is being done by
> anyone for the moment.
I don't think Nautilus is all that hard to get compiled. No harder
than any other in-development application, and we actually list all
the modules you need from CVS, what versions, and what flags to
configure them with.
The real reason no work is getting done is because everyone expected
the RH guys to do this, I think.
> 3. Eazel has not allocated hacker time to work on that, so the
> nautilus-based help browser is effectively on a different
> schedule than Nautilus.
Since Red Hat started this feature (in fact, it was the whole original
reason for Elliot's Nautilus code!) and acted as if they would
continue it, I think we can hardly be blamed for that. :-/
> Here are some ideas (I will use letter to not confuse you all now):
>
> a. It is not hard to write a nice help browser, it just
> requires a lot of love. Consider the panel, today it is
> basically the same panel we had a year ago, but still,
> trough a lot of love, lots of careful iterative
> improvements, and lots of little changes, the new panel has
> become not only a great tool to use, but a visually
> pleasant tool.
>
> b. I would like to use the existing "gnome-help-browser" base,
> replace it with GtkHTML, incorporate Jonathan's great work
> for Docbook->HTML.
>
> c. I would like to improve Jonathan's Docbook translation tool
> so it can also handle reference-like manuals (all of the
> GNOME api is in Docbook format, and we could render
> those).
>
> d. Include the code from testgtkhtml into gnome-help-browser
> to give it some love.
>
> So the core idea is to incorporate the salvageable pieces of code
> from the hyperbola project in Nautilus into either a separeate module,
> or gnome-core HEAD (after the 1.2 release) that does not require
> Nautilus.
>
> Of course, we do want to keep the Nautilus support, but this can
> be nicely split into a separate file that only gets compiled/linked if
> Nautilus libraries are detected, and hence a Bonobo/Nautilus component
> is provided at that point.
All the code you need to do the actual browsing (as opposed to content
display) portions of this new help browser will be basically
duplicating Nautilus. The code to load URIs, the toolbar navigation
buttons, the mechanism for displaying special index views in the
sidebar, history, bookmarks, etc will all be duplicating Nautilus
code. Nautilus will most likely ship in the July-August time frame, so
if this help browser work takes only a month (which would be
impressive), that will be a lot of redoing of stuff for a solution
that will last 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 months, if the nautilus-based help
browser is the ultimate solution.
I think it would be better for someone to do the last 20% of the work
(i.e. 80% of the time, sigh) on the Nautilus-based help browser so the
intended long-term solution will be more polished when it
ships. Either that or decide to give up on the whole idea of the
nautilus-based help browser.
I do still think separating the help broswer-specific code to it's own
module would be good, so it can have it's own release schedule if
necessary, but if anyone can commit to actually working on it, Eazel
will be glad to involve that person in our release planning (we tried
to do that with RH but they seem to have lost interest).
- Maciej
From miguel@erandi.helixcode.com
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To: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@eazel.com>
Cc: gnome-hackers@nuclecu.unam.mx, gnome-devel-list@gnome.org,
gnome-announce-list@gnome.org, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Help Browsing in GNOME
References: <m38zxfodw3.fsf@erandi.helixcode.com> <lqem75vlrj.fsf@pythagoras.eazel.com>
From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@helixcode.com>
Date: 14 May 2000 17:07:06 -0400
In-Reply-To: Maciej Stachowiak's message of "13 May 2000 20:44:16 -0700"
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> > 3. Eazel has not allocated hacker time to work on that, so the
> > nautilus-based help browser is effectively on a different
> > schedule than Nautilus.
>
> Since Red Hat started this feature (in fact, it was the whole original
> reason for Elliot's Nautilus code!) and acted as if they would
> continue it, I think we can hardly be blamed for that. :-/
I was not blaming Eazel for that, I should have been clearer about
this.
Indeed, Red Hat started work on this, but abandoned it. So we are
looking for someone to take over this task.
From mjs@eazel.com
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To: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@helixcode.com>
Cc: gnome-hackers@nuclecu.unam.mx, gnome-devel-list@gnome.org,
gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Help Browsing in GNOME
References: <m38zxfodw3.fsf@erandi.helixcode.com>
From: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@eazel.com>
Date: 15 May 2000 15:20:16 -0700
In-Reply-To: Miguel de Icaza's message of "12 May 2000 13:51:40 -0400"
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I talked to some Red Hat guys and some people here at Eazel, and I
think given the state of the nautilus-based help browser and the fact
that RH is not going to put more effort into it, we at Eazel are
willing to put some of our own resources into it.
Jonathan tells me the main remaining thing to do is work with the docs
peopl to make sure the interface works well with their content, and
that a good time to pick that up would be after GNOME 1.2 ships.
If anyone else wants to work on finishing the nautilus-based help
browser please get in touch with me and Jonathan.
- Maciej