RE: Contents

[Gregory Leblanc <GLeblanc cu-portland edu>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phillip J Shelton [mailto:shelton@usq.edu.au]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2000 5:17 PM
> To: Gregory Leblanc
> Cc: 'Dan Mueth'; gnome-doc-list@gnome.org
> Subject: Re: Contents
> 
> Gregory Leblanc wrote:
> 
> > > If implemented properly, a solution like this could solve 
> not only our
> > > Contents problem but would also help us deal with having
> > > multiple document
> > > versions and documents which are stored on the internet.  For
> > > the Contents
> > > problem, we presumably would need to use the Subject or
> > > Keyword tags along
> > > with a standard classification scheme.  If this is the right
> > > way to go, it
> > > might be better to add a contents tag and distribute a 
> well-defined
> > > contents classification system.
> >
> > I've got a question on this, specifically with the 
> "multiple document
> > versions" that you mention.  I'm not sure what kind of 
> history is kept with
> > this, if any at all.  Do you see some way of using this to 
> help alleviate
> > the problems with using online documentation that is a 
> newer version than
> > what pertains to the application installed on a users 
> machine, and if so,
> > how?  Thanks,
> >         Greg
> 
> Wouldn't the engine we use to read the doc be able to tell 
> what version the
> software is the first time it is called then find the right 
> doc? A list of
> pointers to older docs would need to be kept. All though 
> wouldn't the doc on the
> users machine be the `right' one for the software on his machine??

Yes, but in the case of applications like Gnumeric, GIMP, and maybe
Evolution, you could have 20MB of documentation.  Some places may not have
enough space for this, and we wanted to provide a way to store documentation
remotely, and a way to retrieve updated documentation.  
Dan, that makes a lot of sense about the versions.  Paul says that he'll
have a better summary for us tomorrow, but that you're definitely on the
right track.  Later,
	Greg