Re: Gnome Help Browser

[David Merrill <david lupercalia net>]

On Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 06:25:47PM -0600, John Fleck wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 03:31:07PM -0400, David Merrill wrote:
> > > 
> > > I think Sasha is right here. A help browser needs to understand what
> > > do with a "gnome-help:foo", "man:foo" or "info:food" URL, or linking
> > > between and among documents will not work. You're right that if we
> > > do gnome-db2htl3 right it will output valid html, but the browser
> > > still needs the additional ability to know that when it sees a GNOME
> > > help-related url it needs to hand it off to the help system.
> > 
> > I don't see how that follows. Yes, the *system* has to know how to
> > translate man:foo, but that doesn't mean the browser has to do it. Why
> > can't the browser talk to the library using http post?
> > 
> 
> David, could you explain in more detail what you mean here? I'd love a
> system that could use any browser rather than one that has to be
> specially designed to handle our various help urls.
> 
> How would an arbitrary browser that did not know anything about
> "gnome-help:foo" or "man:foo" or "info:foo" urls use http post to
> access the help system when it saw such a url? Or, alternatively, is
> there a different way we could construct our urls so an arbitrary
> browser would know, "Hey, this isn't an ordinary http or file url, I'd
> better send it off to the help system."

The scrollkeeper system is doing the job of abstracting the
documentation into a library. Why not build a layer on top of that
that serves the help via http, and then any browser can use it,
including a remote browser. It performs format conversions, searching
capabilities, etc.

Imagine a company or project (even the GNOME project or the LDP)
serving custom help repositories to which you can subscribe. Remember
that scrollkeeper will support remote documents in a future release.
Mny excellent sources on the net could be indexed and merged
seamlessly into your help environment.

I'm sure there would be technical challenges in this approach, but it
does separate the logic and presentation very cleanly and it should be
extremely flexible. There's no problem that can't be solved with the
appropriate application of a layer of indirection.

-- 
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                   david lupercalia net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org

Free Dmitry Sklyarov!  http://www.freesklyarov.org
Washington DC Protests http://www.lupercalia.net/dmca

Whenever I try to do serious work with any Microsoft OS, I constantly get
EXCEPTIONS! It seems that exceptions are the rule with Microsoft.
	--Unknown