Re: Bug 455400

[thomas harding laposte net (Thomas Harding)]

On Sun, Jul 22, 2007 at 05:27:04PM -0700, Mark Dexter & Deb Cowley wrote:
> I looked at the link you supplied and found where I would like to add some
> new text (as outlined in the bugzilla bug). I would propose adding a new
> section called 'Text Entry" just after Using Objects / Deleting Objects.
> This appears to be in the file
> http://svn.gnome.org/svn/dia/trunk/doc/en/usage-objects.xml

There are several patches on documentation already in queue (notably
#439974, but there are maybe others).

I strongly recommend you apply these patches to your local svn and
continue on it (eg, to avoid conflicts on chapter numbering), then
upload on the same bug item. Do not forget to check "obsoletes patch
#xxx".

> I'm happy to do this, but I want to make sure I follow the correct
> procedures. Is there a version control system for these XML files? Do I
> follow the procedures documented for source code changes?

Simply svn co the complete source tree, edit the files, then 
svn diff -x "-u" > ../my_pretty_patch
, then upload

> Is there a
> recommended XML editor program I should use?

Vim !
Or any text editor...


> When you say there are a number
> of uncommitted changes, is that something I need to worry about?

See above about conflicts

> I'm an experienced programmer and writer but I don't have much experience
> with creating electronic documentation. So I apologize for having all of
> these questions.

OK,
you will need a few programs/data to build the doc and check for errors
(althougth basically xml files are just copyed in the right place, I
added a "hardcopies makefile" to build pdf, html and postscript
versions. If it builds without errors, then your files are OK :)

jw (package docbook-utils on a Debian system)
openjade
docbook-xml => xml dtd
docbook-xsl => xslt stylesheets
optionnally, imagemagick or graphicsmagick for postscript figures

HTH,
-- 
Thomas Harding