Re: There is no GHB 2.0

[Dan Mueth <d-mueth uchicago edu>]

On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Ali Abdin wrote:

> I hate to tell people this, but there is no GNOME Help Browser 2.0. I think
> Miguel has kind of mislead people about this (when he made that 'call' for
> somebody to hack on it).
> 
> What we have is what I call the 'Nautilus Help Browser' - basically, all
> help stuff will be in Nautilus. 

This is a good point - since the help browser will be built into Nautilus,
what should we call it?   Do people favor changing the name to the
"Nautilus Help Browser"?

> This is how the architecture works (in case you didn't know):
> 
> We have 'gnome-info2html2', 'gnome-man2html2', and 'gnome-db2html2'. These
> are small 'general' utilities that transform info, man, or Docbook files
> into HTML - Nautilus then takes the HTML and renders it for the user (via
> gtkhtml or mozilla or whatever you have text/html configured to). It doesn't
> work quite right but its my responsibility to make it work.
> 
> So thats it. /linking/ to other documentation could work I believe - since
> the output is in HTML, you can create 'links' for example - you could embed
> the following URI in documentation 'man:malloc' - Would that suffice for
> 'cross-documentation' linking. It would be a bit more...difficult...to link
> to Docbook files though. I'm sure maybe sometime in the future something
> more...advanced...could be done. But the focus is on making it work rather
> than adding features :) Most of the 'work' is on three utilities mentioned
> above. They are what you would need to change to 'beautify' stuff or what
> you would need to change to add new 'features' and stuff. Nautilus/gnome-vfs
> are just the 'glue-work' that link them together.

I think I need to clarify this a little bit, as I spoke with a couple
people who were confused about this.  Ali was describing the current state
of the Nautilus-based help system for GNOME 2.0, as well and the current
development work which is going on with it.  Until we finish designing the
features we want in the new help browser, such as the contents, glossary,
searching, and other features we have discussed on this list, the
development will focus on fixing current problems in the existing system
(ie. making it work) and making is as stable and robust as possible.
(Thanks Ali!)  After we have designed a good help system for 2.0, and
provided we do a good job of it, we will get more developer support to
implement at least the most important parts for 2.0.  I do not know who
will be helping to do this work.  But we do know that many developers
understand that a good documentation system is an integral part of a
complete desktop, and they will not let GNOME 2.0 go out without a very
good browser.  The 2.0 version might not have all the bells and whistles
we come up with, but it will have many of the features we have been
discussing.

Dan