Re: 1.4 release?

[Ali Abdin <ALIABDIN aucegypt edu>]

> On Wed, 26 Jul 2000 battery841@mypad.com wrote:
> 
> > Hey guys,
> > 	I know that this is for gnome-dev more than this, but when is
> > 1.4 expected for release?  It sounds like we have a lot of small
> > changes for 1.4, but I have not yet heard a goal for release.  Im just
> > curious.
> > Kevin
> 
> The current target is mid to late October.

Nautilus 1.0 /might/ be released before that (last I heard was September 
- but I got no clue)
 
> It is not yet clear which changes in the help browser we (ie. Ali :) will
> have done in time.
> 
> Here are some possibilities, in roughly increasing order of difficulty
> (and decreasing order of likelihood):
> 
> 1) Just minor updates to docs, still using gnome-help-browser.  (ick)
> 2) Move to Nautilus, still using HTML and no new features.

I think this is possible (as soon as the last couple of bugs are 
squished). Darin checked his bug-fix in, and I'm still waiting for 
Ramiro's one (and the mozilla one)

> 3) Nautilus with XML docs

Well - it would be nice if somebody put up some 'test' XML documentation 
for me so I can run it through gnome-db2html2. I have no clue if it will 
be successfull or not :) I assume that since it uses libxml it should 
work :&

> 4) cross-referencing

This is already possible - I mentioned how this is done in a different 
mail. The only problem is, it doesn't work thanks to a Mozilla bug

> 5) contents listing (either OMF or else a hack)

Without OMF the only Contents listing you can have is an 'Alphabetical' 
one really. 

OMF is too immature right now so I wouldn't expect it for a while :)

> 6) indexing

I contacted rebecka (author of medusa - the searching daemon for 
Nautilus) and I proposed my ideas to her. Basically we need to create an 
'indexing tool' that would 'scan' an XML file, find all the 'Index terms' 
and put them in a binary (index) db.

You probably will not be able to get an 'Index Listing'. 

Hmmm I think I actually mean a 'Glossary' Listing. umm, do you want a 
Glossary listing or an Index listing, or both? For a 'Glossary Listing' 
you won't be able to get it (but you will be able to search for glossary 
items (assuming this is supported in Docbook). As for 'help file indexes' 
this is the first page that it spit out when you do a 'help:<app>' - you 
get the index and you click on the section you want to go to.

So I guess 'indexes' are working - since 'help:<app>' gives you the index 
:)

> 7) searching

Once we have an 'indexer' (see above), it shouldn't be that difficult to 
search for it.

There should be a way to do a 'word' search on documentation (is this the 
same as a glossary search? if we have a word search do we even need a 
glossary???)

> 8) glossary

DOH - I write all that mail (about glossary/Index confusion) and then I 
see you want a glossary :) Well, that would be created by the 'indexer' 
thingie (if a glossary is wanted). I think you only need to 'search' the 
glossary' - I really don't see why you'd want to browse it (I have a 
feeling that Telsa would object to this). I 'guess' that it should be 
easy to generate a glossary from the db if needed (this is all 
speculation because no code has been written)

If all we want to do is be able to use 'glossary search' then maybe we 
don't want/need a glossary - maybe all we need is a word search

> 9) access to documents on the Net via OMF

I wouldn't count on this happening anytime soon :)

> I'm not sure where the line will be drawn. Hopefully we can get at least
> through #4.  I'd really like to get up through #6 or #7, but Nautilus will
> be freezing in not too long, so I'm not sure how realistic this is.  Ali
> has been working hard on making our new system work well, so I am
> optimistic.  However the other Nautilus developers are busy with the other
> Nautilus components, so we may not get much help from them on things which
> are only important for the help system.  As for the OMF work, it is not
> clear how far we can get.  Once we have a dedicated developer, it should
> not take too long.  Right now, we have people working on the
> DocBook/autoconf end of things, but we still need somebody to work on the
> main library.  We do have the option of whipping out a quick and dirty
> OMF-based system which gets the job done without all the bells and
> whistles.  (Writing the basics should not be too hard.)
> 
> Ali - How far do you think we can get on this list?

In summary - I think it would be a realistic goal to get through '5' 
(assuming the contents listing is just alphabetical). I am skeptical 
about the searching/indexing features for Nautilus 1.0 at least (which 
appears to be independant of GNOME 1.4 entirely).

I'm also tied down with finals so I'm not coding anything at the moment :)
 
> For us writers, the first four should not be much work.  If we do #5 or
> #6, we will have a fair amount of work to do - writing metadata and/or
> indexing every document.  We will want to start working on this as soon
> as we are confident the features will ship with GNOME 1.4.

Why tie-down your schedule with GNOME-1.4 :)

> Other help components: 
> 
> 1) pop-up help - This won't happen until GNOME 2.0, as it depends on
> Gtk+2.0.

Nobody appears to be working on this :& 

> 2) hints - This could happen soon if we feel it is important.  We would
> need to convince George to make it a priority.  We would also need to
> write the hints for some applications, which would not be too much work
> and would be fun.

I think this can be easily achieved in GNOME 2.0

> 3) demo/tutorial wizard - Similar to #2.  If we decide it is important, we
> can probably convince Jonathan to release a version we can use.  

Dunno about this