Re: Retiring app menus - planning for 3.32.0

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Fri, 2018-09-21 at 11:59 -0700, Christian Hergert wrote:
> On 09/21/2018 11:43 AM, Shaun McCance wrote:
> > Can you elaborate on this? One of the goals of Mallard is to allow
> > plugin docs to integrate into the main app docs. Is there something
> > we
> > could be doing better?
>
> Advertise the feature? :)
>
> Does it work when they are installed into different directories like
> ~/.local/share/$app/plugins vs /usr for the app?

The help would have to be in ~/.local/share/help/$lang/$app, mirroring
the layout in /usr/share/help, but you can indeed add pages under your
home directory.

And it's only for adding pages, not for adding content to an existing
page. So while a plugin can add lots of pages about how to use it, and
have those pages appear in the docs navigation, it couldn't add content
to a single "Keyboard Shortcuts" page.

(There are Mallard features in the pipeline that could allow adding
content to existing pages, but they're low priority at the moment.)

(Also, I have yet to sit down and figure out how plugins and plugin
docs play out in the world of Flatpak. So there's that.)

> I'm still not in favor of users having to open help and scan for
> shortcuts when we have a very simple way to find what you're looking
> for
> via the search window (and discover new things you didn't know
> about).
>
> But I'm biased, given that I wrote it.
>
> I'm also skeptical that users will think to open help to find
> shortcuts
> when the dominant platform (web) has gone with the shortcuts overlay
> route (albeit their only option).

I actually like the in-app shortcuts reference. The more guidance we
can provide in-app, the better. I do think we can explore better ways
for users to be able to get to the docs when needed, but that's another
conversation.

I just wanted to see if Mallard is falling down on one of its key
features. Thanks for the feedback.

--
Shaun