xml or html for Ubuntu Guides

[Vincent Untz]

Le samedi 03 décembre 2005 à 12:42 +0000, Matthew East a écrit :
> On Sat, 2005-12-03 at 08:57 +0100, Vincent Untz wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Le vendredi 02 décembre 2005 à 17:14 +0000, Matthew East a écrit :

[snip]

> > > Advantages:
> > > 
> > > * We can customise the stylesheets for the documents more easily
> > > (building on the css already in place) by simply working on the
> > > ubuntu-book.css shipped with the package. This can be done without
> > > affecting the non-ubuntu documentation.
> > 
> > Is it hard to change the stylesheet for xml?
> 
> It is probably not that hard to change yelp's stylesheet: however I
> imagine (I haven't looked into this) that it is non-trivial to get yelp
> to use different stylesheets for different documents.

Ah, this a good question. It'd be good to ask this to yelp people :-)

[snip]

> > > * Greater loading speed (this is the killer for me) - Yelp renders in
> > > html, and therefore converts xml to html using its own stylesheets when
> > > you load a document. The time it takes to load pages from xml in yelp is
> > > probably enough to put the user off the help entirely! If we ship html,
> > > the xml->html conversion is undergone in the build process, which means
> > > that the document opens instantly.
> > 
> > Is the speed loading difference important?
> 
> I think it is: slow loading static help pages are a turn off for (at
> least some) users, those users will go on irc or the forum. If
> everything else is equal and the alternatives are (a) fast, or (b) slow,
> then I would obviously go with (a) :)

I agree that slow loading is not good. But can we have some figures? Is
it that slow? :-)

> > > * minor advantages - same format as kubuntu docs, we can put the same
> > > format on help.ubuntu.com as we put in the distribution.
> > 
> > I think we can put the xml files on the website. Or we can simply
> > convert them in html, it's not that hard :-)
> 
> Most web browsers that I know don't read xml. We currently convert them
> to html [1], [2], and [3], that was my point.

Err... A search for "mozilla xml" gives me
See http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/03/29/tutorial/

> [3] http://help.ubuntu.com
> 
> > The best option to me would be to go with xml, but if it's too
> > difficult, switch to html 2 months before the release, eg.
> 
> You didn't bring any reasons in favour of shipping in xml? Why do you
> prefer that?

Well, xml is more generic. If we keep xml, we can do more things with
the installed files. If we go with html, you'll be sure that you will
just display it the way it is and you won't do anything else with it.

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.