Re: Help Dia without touching any source code!

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Mon, 4 Apr 2005, Lars Clausen wrote:

> Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 23:03:06 -0700
> From: Lars Clausen <lars raeder dk>
> Reply-To: discussions about usage and development of dia
>     <dia-list gnome org>
> To: discussions about usage and development of dia <dia-list gnome org>
> Subject: Help Dia without touching any source code!
>
> [This deserves a little more mention that a BTW in another post]
>
> If you like Dia, and would like to contribute something back, but don't
> feel you know enough C or Python to code something, there are many other
> ways to help us improve Dia:

First off, making a list like this is certainly a good way to encourage
people.

>    * Helping out with the web site.  I have neither time nor skills to
>       do anything really good for the web site.  If you do, you could
>       help Dia get a much more professional-looking site.

I think the easiest thing might be to try and use the Gnome.org
stylesheets (or a subtle variation of them).

I think putting some of the content, the FAQ specifically, into a Wiki
would be a good idea.  Not sure though if it would be approrpriate to add
it to the Gnome Wiki: http://live.gnome.org

How safe would it be to use the wiki that you set up for Dia?
http://faemalia.org/wiki/view/Technical/DiaEditor

Using the gedit page as an example I went ahead and created a space for
Dia under the "Module Maintenance Workspaces" section.
http://live.gnome.org/Dia

>    * Helping reproduce/narrow down/confirm fixes of bugs.
>       Bugzilla.gnome.org has our bug database.  Many bugs are waiting
>       to be confirmed or usefully reproduced, or our fixes tested.

Next weekend I will try and take another look at building from CVS or your
snapshots and see what I can do to reduce the bug count.
http://www.raeder.dk/~larsrc/Dia/snapshots


For what its what Abiword has a nice bug graph and seeing the visual
impact of bug triaging can be helpful motivation.
http://www.abisource.com/buggraphs/

Is there anything we can do to reduce the amount of duplicate bug reports
that RedHat has accidentally inflicted on Dia?


>    * Update info on Dia in software databases.  Dia is mentioned in a
>       number of places, and many have some sort of program info (e.g.
>       sourceforge, gnome.org).  These need updating to spread interest
>       in Dia and attract more contributors for an even better program.

I try to maintain this Dia page
http://advogato.org/proj/Dia/
and I have also tried to add to this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dia

My freshmeat username is horkana and I do seem to be able to add myself so
if you want to add me I'll try and help with the Freshmeat page for Dia
http://freshmeat.net/projects/dia/

Might not hurt to make it editable by all registered freshmeat users.
The freshmeat admins will still moderate it in case you're worried.


I tried to make the Inkscape page about Dia
http://www.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Dia
point out the strengths of Dia (that are relevant to Inkscape) perhaps
others will add more.


Now that you have mentioned it I will point my journal entry about Dia.
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/diary.html?start=189

It is difficult to find time and get in the habit of writing regularly but
I want to try and write about Dia and mention any interesting things I've
found or discuss recent improvements.


>    * Find and report bugs.  When you find a misbehaviour in Dia, you can
>       report it at bugzilla.gnome.org.  If you think "surely somebody
>       already reported this", check out
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/reports/product-mostfrequent.cgi?product=dia

>    * Update the documentation.  This would help many a new user.

Any areas in particular?

I've been meaning to do a little more work on this but I find myself
wanting to overhaul parts of the user interface rather than document it
as is and try to change it later.

>    * Make nice examples of what Dia is used for (to go on the web page,
>       see the first item).  We're seeing more and more neat usages,
>       a collection of them would be nice.

I occassionally take screenshots of Dia
http://matrix.netsoc.tcd.ie/~horkana/dia/

but I do not have any really nice diagrams to show off, so I suppose I
should encourage users to submit sample diagrams somewhere.  It could be
useful as both a test suite and a gallery of sorts.

I think it might be possible to put the Dia screenshots page in a Wiki to
allow for easier updating.

>    * Translate.  We have an excellent group of translators, and Dia is
>       currently translated into 49 languages!  But more translators
>       are always welcome, in particular non-Indoeuropean languages are
>       weakly represented.  We only have one African language so far,
>       for instance.

A mail to gnome-love or gnome translatoin might help spark some interest.
In fact it might be a good idea if you were to forward your message to the
gnome-love-list and actively solicit new developers.

> All this should go on the web site along with info on how best to
> approach it, but see the first item:)


Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
Abiword http://www.abisource.com
Dia http://gnome.org/projects/dia/

> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/dia-list
> FAQ at http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/faq.html
> Main page at http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia