Re: users guide - some thoughts

[<njh cs monash edu au>]

On Thu, 21 Oct 1999, Alexander Kirillov wrote:

> Of course, I understand that Dave has only limited time. I am asking
> what the goals are. Do we intend to put in the users guide
> documentation for all the applets? then let's list those which are not
> there yet, and ask people for help - this can be done quickly. What
> about applications? We obviously can't have in users-guide help for
> ALL applications. Any reasonable criteria? Maybe, just LIST all
> applications with a brief comment - as in gnome sofware map - and
> links to their documentation, so that users know what they have
> available without the need to guess what "Ghex" in menu might stand
> for? Ideas, anyone?

I think what most users really want is an inverse index - an index where
they ask "How do I look at what's on my disk?" or "Is there a program
which allows me to view an XML file?".  One idea might be to build a
locate type command which extracts keywords and common phrases(much like
most web search engines work) and builds a list of possible solutions(Jon
Howell's FAQ-o-matic does a good approximation of this).

Not sure the best way to do this, somehow fix a search engine to a large
number of (xml?) structured FAQs, or perhaps just index over the whole
doco with some keywords mapped together.

Anyway, my point is that comprehensive documentation is good, but most
people are more interested in having their problem solved, rather than a
detailed understanding of a smaller set of tools.

njh