Upcoming UI changes for UNR

[Kyle Nitzsche]

If you want to display a UNR help system instead of the default Ubuntu 
help system, here's one way to do it.

1) write UNR help (in docbook or html), translate it,  and install it 
per usual (with omf files). (Docbook is slower but picks up some theming 
colors. albeit not very dynamically. You could write it as a docbook 
'article'.)
2) modify the main yelp desktop file Exec line that launches yelp to 
point to the new help system (instead of letting yelp use its default, 
which is the Ubuntu Help Center). Something like: Exec=yelp ghelp:unr 
(<- 'unr' is the help system name used in the omf files)
3) Optionally hide the Yelp "Help Topics" button because it brings one 
back to the Ubuntu help. I actually hid the enter toolbar for one case. 
Or point Help Topics button at UNR help. I made a patch some time ago 
that enabled yelp to check a gconf key for the help to use.

Note that the new UNR help could contain links to the Ubuntu help 
topics, so its content can still be present, just not its front page.

In general, I think we may want to consider ways to more easily 
customize the default help system that yelp displays. As Matthew notes, 
right now the main help page is built into the yelp package. (It's an 
xslt page you can find on your system here: 
/usr/share/yelp/xslt/toc2html.xsl). One could modify that file, but it's 
not pretty and would involve carrying a diff with yelp.

(It may be that gnome's new mallard format can come to rescue here later 
by enabling simpler assembly of content (reuse/single sourcing)).

Cheers,
Kyle


Matthew East wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 10:44 AM, Dougie Richardson
> <dougierichardson at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>   
>> Hi Matthew,
>>
>> 2009/9/13 Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com>:
>>     
>>> On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Loïc Minier <loic.minier at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>>>       
>>>> On Sat, Sep 12, 2009, Dougie Richardson wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>> While we're on UNR, if anyone on the team is interested then let me
>>>>> know, the Network and Internet section is complete but the rest is
>>>>> just a skeleton trunk.
>>>>>           
>>>>  So you mean you started from Ubuntu docs and just revised the Network
>>>>  and Internet sections, right?
>>>>         
>>> FWIW, I think this is definitely the way that this should be done. UNR
>>> is essentially Ubuntu with a facelift, and the majority of the
>>> material in the ubuntu-docs package is applicable. We've discussed in
>>> the past what the best way to ensure that derivative branches (e.g.
>>> xubuntu-docs) can use the material and changes made to the ubuntu-docs
>>> branches, and this is an excellent opportunity to put that into
>>> practice.
>>>
>>> I'd like to see a UNR branch created from the ubuntu-docs branch,
>>> which makes the relevant changes to account for the differences in
>>> menu structure and the additional software included in UNR. That
>>> branch can then keep up to date with changes made to the ubuntu-docs
>>> branch by merging in such changes as are relevant, and ignoring those
>>> that are not.
>>>
>>> Does anyone see an issue with such an approach?
>>>       
>> Yes, the UNR team are keen that help reflects the interface -
>> desktop-switcher flips between the two. At the moment we discussed
>> that it sets an environment variable used to bring up the relevant
>> help.
>>     
>
> I don't think that is an issue with what I suggested, which was about
> how best to go about creating and maintaining the documents. The issue
> you've raised is a challenge related to how to display the end-product
> to users, which I think is a challenge that will arise in any event.
> The problem is going to be that if UNR intends to use yelp as the help
> viewer, yelp is pre-programmed to show the Ubuntu desktop help when it
> is opened. I'm pretty sure there is a way around that (probably by
> creating a separate custom index page for UNR which yelp opens into)
> but I think it's a separate discussion from how to maintain the actual
> documents.
>
>