Re: Making Yelp Even More Inclusive

[Don Scorgie <DonScorgie Blueyonder co uk>]

Hi,

On Sat, 2006-04-29 at 17:20 -0500, Tommy Trussell wrote:
<snip>
> I want to start out by saying that I have been using Dapper on a test
> machine and am VERY impressed with the yelp / Help that comes up. It's
> already more useful and inclusive than under Breezy, and apparently
> getting better all the time. I really appreciate having a search box,
> too, though I think its scope may need to be expanded to include more
> areas...

Thanks, we try ;)

> 
> Here are two examples of things already installed on my hard drive I
> might be seeking but are NOT yet in yelp:
> 
> 1) xsane docs in /usr/share/doc/xsane/html/sane-xsane-doc.html
> 
> 2) imagemagick docs in /usr/share/doc/imagemagick/index.html

Documents displayed in yelp are registered through scrollkeeper.  These
2 programs don't register their docs with scrollkeeper.  Please file
bugs in launchpad, hopefully someone can make it so (along with other
documentation that you find that should be listed in Yelp)

> 
> I gave those two examples deliberately -- (1) xsane I believe is part
> of an "ordinary" Ubuntu installation, and (2) imagemagick I believe is
> an optional install (though anyone using any level of graphics
> probably adds it VERY soon!).
> 
> I was disappointed that typing ImageMagick in the yelp search box does
> not even bring up its man page in yelp, nor do most of the ImageMagick
> commands (animate and conjure do but the others don't seem to). I have
> a lot to learn to know how the yelp index(es) get generated, but
> obviously they don't look in man-db in the same way that (the command
> line) apropos command does.

(assuming your not using the Beagle search backend)
Searching happens in 3 stages:  First, all the manuals are searched (the
same list thats used to generate Yelps index).  Then the man pages are
searched and finally the info pages are searched.  The man pages are
searched by issuing the command "apropos <search_term>" just as if typed
in the terminal.  The results are then parsed internally.  In Yelp
2.14.x, some man results were discarded due to the way the results of
the call were parsed [1].  This may be whats happening here.  Trying
"apropos Imagemagick" from the command line returns no results for me,
neither do any other imagemagick commands, so something might be screwed
up in my setup or something strange going on with imagemagick's man
pages.

> 
> Are these things that are planned for the Yelp index / search box?
> Should I file a bug, or have I missed a whole discussion about this
> (very likely)?
> 

We're working hard to improve basic searching in the next release of
GNOME.  For a list of the current changes have a look at [2].  Anything
else, please file bugs.

Don

[1] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=331831
[2] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=339595