Re: Stylesheets [was: Re: [Nautilus-list] Re: Help API for GNOME 2.0]

[David Merrill <david lupercalia net>]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2001 at 10:10:43AM -0500, Dan Mueth wrote:
> I don't want to make things too complicated, but I don't expect that
> handling multiple stylesheets will be very hard.  The hardest part will be
> keeping the stylesheet catalog.  This should not be a big deal I don't
> think.
> 
> I'm not worried about documents which don't specify a stylesheet.  These
> documents are just displayed with the standard Norman Walsh stylesheet.
> Similarly, invalid stylesheet requests can just fall back to the default.
> Of course you shouldn't have invalid stylesheets if people put the
> appropriate dependency information into autoconf or the package info
> anyway.  Most GNOME apps would depend on a GNOME stylesheet which is
> shipped with gnome-libs or gnome-core probably.  Packages could also
> potentially ship a special stylesheet which is only used by the docs in
> that package if they want, although very few would actually do this.
> 
> This should not make things any more complex for application developers
> and packagers unless they want to use a customized stylesheet.  So, I
> don't see this as a burden on anybody except whoever writes and maintains
> this part of the help system.  Also, nothing about this should be
> GNOME-specific.  In fact, if we don't get the LDP and KDE to sign onto
> this, then there is no point in doing it.
> 
> I don't want to push this too hard if others don't like the idea.
> However, I don't think it would be too hard to do, and I think a lot of
> groups (KDE, GNOME, LDP, Mozilla, various Linux/Unix/BSD distributors, and
> others)  would take advantage of this feature and may more likely adopt a
> common help system* if it allowed them to still control the appearance of
> their documents.

Our stylesheet is very close to vanilla. If the ability to tailor a
stylesheet is available, we will probably take advantage of it, but
it's not a big issue, I don't think. I'll check with the list and make
sure, though.

> * I'm moving toward the idea of a free help system to be shared by these
> various groups/distributions. Among other things, it should be able to
> display any document so that it appears the way the author intended
> independent of the desktop or browser the user is using.  It isn't clear
> how much of the code should be shared and how much should just follow a
> similar specification.  I think we all have a lot to gain by working
> together to develop a common help system however.

There's something to be said for customization, but there's also
something to be said for consistency. I hate, for example, the fact
that LDP docs are in 6 different source formats that all render
differently. I'd hate to see Gnome present the same problem.

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

If one company dominates everything, it's dangerous. You kill innovation and
you lose the capacity to create alternatives. Ultimately, that isn't good
for the consumer or the country.
	--Samuel Miller, U.S. Justice Department