Re: "What's this"

[raster rasterman com]

On  7 May, Sasha_Vasko osca state mo us scribbled:
>  
> > Sasha_Vasko osca state mo us writes:
> > > Clients should not be bothered with displaying help, unless you want to
> > > bloat all of them with basically identical help rendering code.
>  >
> > The code will be in toolkits, e.g. GTK, Qt. So there's no bloat issue.
>  >
>  
>  wait a sec. Are we disscussing "what's this" feature applicable only to
>  toolkits ? If so then I retract all my proposals.
>  
>  I thought that you wanted to be able to get help not only on toolkit
>  windows
>  but universally on any object on the desktop. I don't think that any
>  sane window manager is going to implement its own hyperlinked help

I'm not averse to doing it... :) it's kinda fun.. alreayd implimented
one for E16 (dox) because i just wanst willing to wait 10 secons for
netscape to pop up with help info in it for some simple help docs with
inline diagrams and links within the doc... :) the wm doesnt have to
actually impliment the cod if you dont want to.. it coudl pass it off
to a helper app installed and exec it passing the info along...

>  browser - the best you can count on is popping up mozilla or term with
>  man page/faqs displayed in it. What that brings you to is that user may get
>  all kinds of help systems from different desktop objects - from GTK apps -
>  one,
>  from QT apps - another and completely different from something else,
>  and nothing at all from most other things. All of those things will
>  have different look and feel, which is not nice. If you really want to
>  implement global help system, you have to think about signle app, that can
>  display help for both GTK/Qt as well as the rest of the world.

unless you write it - it will never happen. both camps will do (and
alreayd have done) their own. you can do one - but neither side will
use it. welcome to the world fo warring desktops. we can standardize
but each mob have their own implimentation of those standards - and you
either pick one side or the other or you get a mish-mash of them.
you're call as a user. personally i'm happy to just impliment my own
stuff for myself and be done with it :) saves me having to choose

choose a job .. choose a family.. choose a fucking big television..
choose life. :)

>  If all you need is internal toolkit help browser - then why bother with
>  standard? I don't think it will make any sense at all for window manager
>  to implement "What's it" button which will work only in GTK/QT, and
>  will not work correctly even on its own interface elements.
>  
>  Besides do you actually see all the apps linked as dynamically only
>  from now onwards? Cos if you link it statically - you do get bloat issue.
-- 
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The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler)    raster rasterman com     raster valinux com
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