layout change for help center

[Matthew East]

Hi,

On Tue, 2007-02-27 at 23:10 +0100, hv1989 wrote:
> Hi everybody
> 
> I've started to change the layout of the help center. You can see what
> I want to create on http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2195688.
> So I want it to be more attractive and more usable. Also I want to try
> to bring the layout of the different manuals (toc/search/man/info/...)
> to a standard layout. So it doesn't jump the whole time around.

I quite like the design. I hope others will comment too! However, you
are certainly working on a version of Yelp which does not have the
modifications which we recently did to it.

The latest version of yelp in Feisty is 2.16.2-1ubuntu4 and it looks
like this:

http://doc.ubuntu.com/~matt/yelp.png

You should bear this in mind when creating amendments to the front page
layout.

> Now I have already changed TOC. There could be minor tweaks I add on
> it in the future, but the basic idee is there (1). Now I want to start
> with SEARCH. It will have the same layout as TOC, so if you start
> searching you don't come on a totally other page (2).

Do you have a mockup for the other pages which you are trying to create?
In particular, what do you do with the sidebar when viewing specific
documents?

> Nexto the different steps I want to do, I got some questions. That are
> the numbers. I hope you can answer or solve them.

There is no one in the documentation team who is an expert with yelp.
But I'll do my best.

> (1) First a question about the colors. I see there are some links to
> some colors and icons like: <xsl:value-of select="$yelp.color.bg"/>.
> Now some of the colors I overwrite with new one, because I don't know
> how I can edit it else? Also I introduce new colors. Do they need to
> be specified like the <xsl:value-of select="$yelp.color.bg"/>, because
> now I'm just inserting the hexadecimal value. Can you explain how I
> need to do it properly?

The colours come from the theme that the user is using. You can't just
insert a colour value - you need to use the colours as defined by the
yelp.color.etc variables. If you poke around the code, you'll find where
they are defined and you'll have a list of all the different ones.

> Also I want to use an image in the search entry. Now I don't know how
> I can add a new image, so it gets on the right place and I don't know
> how I can link to it through CSS. (I know how to do it in CSS, but I
> don't know the location of the image...) 

I don't know how this is done.

> (2) For step 2 yelp-search-page.h and yelp-search-page.c need to be
> updated. But I'm more into CSS/HTML then I am into cpp or c. I mean I
> got no experience with it and I'm not able to write it. 
> So could anyone look to it and change 
> So my idea for yelp is that toc2html and search2html get the same
> layout. So the yelp-search-page.h and yelp-search-page.c need to be
> updated, so I can change the layout of search, so it fit with toc
> layout. So I need to get the information for the left bar in search
> to! Would it possible you change that and send my back those two
> files? 

I can't help with this, and I doubt that anyone on the list will be able
to. See below about working with the Yelp developers.

> 3) In the layout on http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2195688
> you can see I want to hide the navigation bar for toc and search. For
> the moment it isn't possible to hide it. Is it possible someone makes
> an option or something like that, so it hides when you're in toc and
> search and comes again when you go to man and info? 

No idea. But I think whatever solution you find should be consistent -
the same navigation should apply to all pages.

> 4) I've got a really good suggestion. Wouldn't it be nice to have
> bookmarks in the layout too? The new layout makes it possible and it
> is more useable, I think. It would fit in the bottom of the left bar. 

Personally I don't think that is necessary. See what others think.

> I know you guys are really busy for feisty and my proposal is a bit
> late. That's why I've ordered the list of what I want in priority. So
> you don't need to do everything right away. I'm also thinking 1 and 2
> need to be in feisty. If you don't have enough time for 3 and 4, it
> can wait for the next release after feisty. 

One final point - work like this should probably be proposed directly
upstream. That way the yelp developers can review your work and ensure
that the code is correct. We will be unable to apply a patch of yours to
Ubuntu unless one of the upstream developers has at least approved it.

Matt
-- 
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF