Drake's #docs Dialogue

[Eric Baudais <drake x8b4e541f dhcp okstate edu>]

This summary covers  Sunday 13 Feb. 2000.

1) Martin has compiled two debian packages gnome-docbook.deb and
gnome-docbook-bin.deb located on the CVS in
gnome-docu/debian/docbook-gnome.  These packages automatically install
GDP's custom stylesheets and the png variant of Docbook V3.1 DTD.

2) Dan Meuth has added a new section called Packaging Applet Documentation
to the GDP Handbook.  How to package the applet docs is being currently
discussed and this section contains basic information about applet
documentation and how to add documentation to the applet menu.

3) Gnome 1.2 will be released with gmc.  It has not changed much in a
while so the docs may not need much updating. GDP needs somebody to
volunteer to check over docs.  Also gmc doesn't have a Help menu item to
link to the docs.  Federico, Miguel, or jrb can do this when we know
whether to link the docs to the User's Guide (UG) or to individual docs.
jrb has expressed a willingness to link the docs to gmc if someone will
revise them.  GDP needs to decide if the gmc docs will reside in the UG or
have individual docs.

4) Club has changed the doctable so you can view individual sub-sections
separately.  This will improve the download time for folks with slower
connections, like most of us.

5) Steve George is writing the docs for the control center.  He has
finished the text, but has the markup and screenshots left to finish.  It
looks like his doc will be done in time for the release of Gnome 1.2. 
Thanks Steve.  He might need someone to help him markup the text.  If
anyone is interested contact him.

6) A milestone has been reached, a developer has willingly linked a doc
written by the GDP to his application.  Martin has linked gtop's doc to
the help menu, committed the doc to CVS, and given Telsa (doc's author)
permission to commit any changes to the doc for future releases.

7) This last point is a personal rant.  I've been associated with the GDP
for a little over 3 weeks and during this time I have seen developers
ignoring our efforts to add documentation to their programs.  I believe
that no application is complete unless it has docs and no desktop is
complete unless all the docs have the same look and feel.  If Gnome
doesn't have docs it will "alienate GNOME users and the media."  This is
why we need the full coorperation of developers to add docs to their apps.
A big thank you goes out to all developers who have helped get the docs
into the respective apps.

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The funny quote for Sunday 13 February 2000 is from frob:

* frob said GovNetOrgMilEdu and all,all,all! and changed N.Rota to
D.Brubeck
<frob>G-N-O-M-E, NR or Brubeck

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This concludes Drake's #docs Dialogue for Sunday 13 Feb. 2000.

If anyone has anything to contribute to Drake's #docs Dialogue, contact
Eric Baudais <baudais@okstate.edu> before 1:00am Central Standard Time.


Drake