Re: Proposal for Nautilus help display

[David Merrill <david lupercalia net>]

On Fri, Jul 13, 2001 at 01:12:53PM +0100, László Kovács wrote:
> David Merrill wrote:
> > 
> > On Fri, Jul 13, 2001 at 11:41:19AM +0100, László Kovács wrote:
> > > > > The Contents tab is for navigation of installed docs and it is exactly
> > > > > the same as the current content list pane in Nautilus.
> > > >
> > > > One thing I was hoping to add to this is the ability to zoom in and out of
> > > > the tree.  You can think of this as either "zooming" and "unzooming", or
> > > > just "pan left" and "pan right".  For example, we might have two little
> > > > arrows (left and right) (or two magnifying glasses with + and -) at the
> > > > top or bottom of the pane.  The default view right now is what I would
> > > > consider all the way zoomed out.  If one has a document or section
> > > > selected, as they zoom in they lose information about other
> > > > documents/sections and probably see more subsections of the given
> > > > document(s).  This follows the way people navigate for documentation,
> > > > starting at a broad scale and then focussing in on a given part of a given
> > > > document.
> > >
> > > Right now we display all the sections about a doc as part of the content
> > > list. I guess this is hardly completely zoomed out. I would imagine this
> > > like by default the content list contains one entry for each doc and
> > > then when selecting a doc and zooming in we get the subsections. I see
> > > two problems in the short term:
> > >
> > > 1. Gnome docs are small so they don't really justify this
> > > implementation.
> > 
> > The help browser will be used to view more than just Gnome docs. Our
> > docs are up to 500 pages (printed) in length. You'd better be prepared
> > to deal with large documents.
> > 
> 
> We'll try our best David, but as I said we have resource problems. The
> primary goal is to display the Gnome docs. I clearly mentioned that the
> zooming builds on top of the previous content list so if we have time
> and people then we will do it. Anyway large docs might have problems
> with docbook->html conversion speed.

I understand that you will do your best, and I also understand that
there's no way a really big document is going to render immediately. I
only ask you to be mindful. I will help as much as I can (which won't
be much, honestly, as the LDP needs me very badly and there is much
work to be done there, too). I can test and profile some of our large
docs, and so on, though. I would be happy to get a Gnome development
environment set up so I can help hack a bit, even, but would probably
need hand holding.

I can see why viewing Gnome help is more directly related to the Gnome
project, but I hope you and KDE are working to make the user's
experience as seamless as possible by providing access to *all* the
help regardless of which desktop is running that day.

Am I wrong in making the assumption that the Gnome Help Browser(s) are
being designed to be *an* interface to an underlying help database,
as is KDE's? And that there won't be a separation into multiple
databases of help, so you have to go back and forth between reading
Gnome help in the Gnome Browser, KDE Help in the KDE browser, and
HOWTOs in some other? This is very important to a seamless user
experience.

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

Whenever you have need of anything,
Once in the month, and better when the moon is full,
You shall assemble in some secret place
And adore the spirit of Me
Who is Queen of all the Wise.
		-- from The Charge of the Goddess, Doreen Valiente