lists vs procedures WAS: Patch for Kubuntu Desktop Guide: Games Section

[Jeff Schering]

On 2/15/06, Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Another concern is the effort required to do this convertion process. It's not
> just a simple find&replace job, afaics.

A find and replace will do the trick. Replace all <itemizedlist> with
<procedure>, and all <listitem> with <step>.

>
> I think it will pay here to focus on what output benefits we gain, rather than
> the technical principle of which tag is "correct" in the docbook world. At least
> given that we don't have that much time left before string freeze, and we do
> have plenty of work to do on the content.

Any book on tech writing will tell you that procedures have numbered
steps. The only time a step is not numbered is when it is a
single-step procedure. Readers expect procedures to be numbered.

I have tested the above find and replace on my wc of common-tasks.xml
and it works fine. (although there could be a bit of fine-tuning in
one place: "2.4.4.4. Load Web sites faster in Mozilla Firefox.") Also,
it turns out that Yelp is smart enough to use a bullet on procedures
with only one step.

Cheers,
Jeff

--
Jeff Schering
GPG: F23C67E8