Re: help browser plan

[Miles Lane <miles megapathdsl net>]

On Mon, 2001-11-26 at 16:21, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Can someone fill me in on the plan for help browsing in GNOME 2? I've
> seen various ideas floating around, but we should make a decision if
> we haven't.
> 
> If we're going to use a standalone browser, we should consider
> dropping the help components from Nautilus - that will make Nautilus
> smaller and eliminate some code we have to worry about. At the same
> time, if we're going to use a standalone browser, we need to decide
> what it is for sure and start working on it ASAP.
> 
> If someone's all over this and already decided, just let me know what
> the plan is. ;-)

Hi,

Let's basically do a knockoff of the Help system packaged
with Visual-Studio.NET.  It uses a XML file format for its
data files.  The XML files define the UI layout, as well as 
the content structure and how the various content is mapped
to the UI.  This Help system uses Help UI panes that dock
into into parent window.  MS has developed these Help UI objects
that they plug onto Windows Explorer.  This means they get
to reuse all the HTML display stuff.  For their Help content
display, they have added support for rendering these XML
files with special UI tags for things like popup tooltip-like
term definitions, etc.

I'd like to send you all some screenshots of the UI, but the
images result in a 1.4MB message.  I also have a selection
of the XML files that show the way in which MS is structuring
things.  

Personally, I really like what MS has done.  Since it is 
likely that MS will eventually release tools for content
developers to rapidly release content in this format, one
benefit of doing a data-file compatible Help system for 
Gnome is that content developers could use there current
tools for developing Gnome content.  It also means that we
don't have to reinvent the wheel, since it looks, from my
reading of the XML files, that they've done a pretty good
job.

If anyone would like to look at the screenshots, let me
know and I'll be happy to send them along to individuals.

	Miles