Re: current and future help



On Mon, 2012-11-19 at 06:23 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 12:38 AM, Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org> wrote:
> 
> >>
> >> - should use the same patterns as other GNOME 3 applications
> >
> > Yelp is not an application. Users certainly don't see it as one.
> > It's already pretty screwed up by the way GNOME Shell treats it
> > as one.
> 
> You treat it as an application yourself:
> - you give it a desktop file
> - it shows up in the application list
> - it uses a very classic application window pattern with menubar,
> toolbar, content

- A window that doesn't have an associated desktop file looks
awful in GNOME Shell.
- It didn't used to be in the application list. It used to be
under System on GNOME 2. *I* didn't put it in the application
list.
- Up until recently, that was the only design paradigm we had
that could present the stuff Yelp presents. It's not that way
in the mockup I had. I've found it, so I attached it. (mtime
says May. Didn't realize it was that old.)

> If you don't want an application, don't write one - make it a library
> that applications link against to present their help. You don't need
> to play games with gtk_window_present() then, either...

Not a file gets installed on GNOME without you noticing.
I'm sure you know that library already exists.

> You won't have a place to present the standalone user guide any more,
> though. We need an application for that.
> 
> Can we at agree that yelp is used in two very different modes ? The
> one is a standalone documentation viewer, the other is to present
> application help. We probably disagree on whether it is ok to ditch
> the second mode and always be a separate application.

I don't think the desktop help and application help are all
that different. In either case, Yelp is designed to let you
get information quickly without blocking what you're doing.

--
Shaun

Attachment: yelp-mockup.png
Description: PNG image



[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]