Software Store Help (and Help Strategy)

[Kyle Nitzsche]

Hi Milo,

Are you going to be at UDS?

If so, perhaps that would be a good chance to discuss/refine/define 
things as part of the process for getting a good blueprint together.

As a starting point, how about:
 * the basic idea is that a source package may contain its own help 
(probably packaged in a standard way to facilitate LP integration, 
translation, etc.)
 * Each package should/can have a "Help" (or "Documentation") tab in LP
 * In that tab, one might set the Permissions (Open, Assigned, Closed, ...)
 * And widgets to assign the package to a Documentation Group (say, 
"Ubuntu Docs") (much like one now assigns a package's translations to 
Ubuntu Translators)
 * Perhaps show some status, for example: "Help is Under Development" 
(which means feel free to change the source), or "Help is Frozen for 
String Freeze" etc.
 * Documentation groups could get an LP page that automatically lists 
the packages assigned to them (like Ubuntu Translators does, although I 
can't find that at the moment :)
 * Naturally, there would be a documentation group for Ubuntu: Ubuntu 
Documenters (or something).
( * There might be language specific teams: not for *translation*, but 
for screen shots ? )

Questions/thoughts:
 * would help translations be delivered by the package or in language 
packs? Well, probably for Ubuntu, lang packs, but for upstream LP 
packages, by the package itself.
 * would help translations be performed in the package's translations 
page or in Ubuntu? I'd guess that depends on whether the package has a 
separate upstream existence on LP, like UNR packages. These would have 
translations performed in them. packages that are also pulled into 
downstream ubuntu could also expose them, if necessary.
 * Thus, there should be a well-known toolchain to support extraction 
from source docbook (to start with) to po (xml2po anyone?), upload to LP 
(import translations from bzr branch?), and, after translation is 
complete, export to po in bzr branch. These imply a standard structure 
for help in a package, which may be new, but I don't think is  too hard.
 
Cheers,
Kyle


Milo Casagrande wrote:
> Hi Kyle,
>
> 2009/9/30 Kyle Nitzsche <kyle.nitzsche at canonical.com>:
>   
>> As a quick thought: LP now provides a structure (pages/work flow) that
>> assists Ubuntu Translators with keeping track of the different packages
>> they need to work on for each release. Maybe something similar could be
>> created for help (docs)? Maybe, just as there is a "Translations" tab
>> for each package, there can/should be a "Help" tab, with a
>> structured/manageable relationship (in LP) to translations?. (I know,
>> call me crazy ; ) With this, each package could deliver its own
>> (translated) help, facilitated by LP.
>>     
>
> I don't think you're crazy, otherwise we will be in two! :)
> This is something I've been thinking for quite some time, and wanted
> to open a blueprint for the coming UDS. I think this is indeed a great
> feature that Launchpad should have and it will be useful not only for
> Ubuntu, but for all Launchpad hosted projects: one day or the other
> they will need to deal with documentation and if Launchpad has the
> infrastructure in place to ease this process, Launchpad wins.
>
> I would really like to discuss about this with some Launchpad devs and
> see if it feasible and what resources are needed.
>
> Ciao.
>
>