Re: Online Help wrapping

[John Fleck <jfleck inkstain net>]

On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 08:01:33PM -0500, Dan Mueth wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 1 May 2001, John Sheehan wrote:
> 
> > If I invoke the Panel Manual, I get a piece of 'pure' help for what is
> > a major Gnome feature.  If I invoke help for the simplest of applets, I
> > may get a TOC in which less than half of the entries relate to actual 
> > help.  As a user, I find the former friendly, and the latter overwhelming.  
> >

I agree with John S. here that the more minimal we can make our
documentation, the more focused and therefore useful it becomes. As
long as we can make the case for removal of the items, which I think
Dan has done below, I'm cool....
 
> 
> We have some work to do here.  I think for GNOME 2.0 we need to review our
> template and stylesheet carefully and consider ways to simplify what the
> user sees.  We have quite a bit of boilerplate on each document, and much
> of it can be removed or else moved to a less conspicuous place. 
<snip>
> 
> Our boiler plate sections are:
>   * Known Bugs and Limitations
>   * Authors
>   * License
> 

<snip>

> So, I think we could get rid of all three of these sections (except Known
> Bugs and Limitations for just a couple docs) with no loss except the loss
> of the link to the Reporting GNOME Bugs doc.  I'm not sure whether this
> one link justifies a section of its own or not.
> 
> What do people think about these suggestions?  It would make docs look a
> lot more like online help than they currently do.
>

I agree. 
 
Cheers,
-- 
John Fleck
jfleck inkstain net (h)
jfleck abqjournal com (w)
http://www.abqjournal.com/scitech/
http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/