Status of the Ubuntu Docs in Natty

[David Planella]

El dv 25 de 02 de 2011 a les 15:20 -0500, en/na Shaun McCance va
escriure:
> On Fri, 2011-02-25 at 20:46 +0100, David Planella wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I've been checking out the yelp version in Natty this week, and apart
> > from watching in awe the increase in speed, I've also been wondering
> > about the status of the Ubuntu docs and their translations, especially
> > after the discussions regarding the project direction a few weeks ago.
> > 
> > I've noticed that there isn't any front page for the Ubuntu docs yet,
> > and that currently launching yelp shows the GNOME desktop guide in
> > English (I'll have to investigate why this happens, I suspect it might
> > be a problem on the translations packaging or importing side).
> 
> Are you referring to the new topic-based help ("Desktop Help")
> or the old user guide ("Desktop User Guide")? The default was
> changed pretty recently, and I'm not sure what build of Yelp
> you're using.
> 

Hey Shaun,

I seem to remember it was the new topic-based help. I can no longer see
it due to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/yelp/+bug/726490
(not reported upstream yet, I want to make sure it's not a distro bug
first).

As per the version, I'm using yelp 2.91.90, the latest packaged version
in Ubuntu.

> If it's the topic-based help, there are no translations right
> now. So that would explain why you're seeing English. Otherwise,
> if there's a problem with the localized document lookup, please
> let me know. That would be a very critical bug.
> 

Ok, understood, thanks. That seems to be the case (no topic-based help
translations available yet).

Regarding translations, what's the reason for them not being available?
Can yelp not yet translate them, or are the translatable messages not
yet exposed for translation, or is there any other reason?

> As for the Ubuntu docs being the front page, the idea was that
> the Desktop Help would just be able to be that for all distros,
> and that extra pages could be added when it makes sense. That
> was a really good plan a year ago. But just as we finally got
> the technical bits in place, Ubuntu is switching to Unity as
> a default desktop. So the GNOME Desktop Help is probably not
> going to be a good base document.
> 
> Ubuntu is probably going to need its own main help document,
> as it's had in the past. Let's figure out how to best make
> that work.
> 
> 1) Ubuntu could just ensure that, in every bit of code that
> wants to display the desktop help, Yelp is called with a URI.
> 
>   Pro: no patching to Yelp.
>   Con: Some code somewhere might get missed.
> 
> 2) Ubuntu could patch Yelp to have a different default URI.
> I think this is what's been done in the past. It could be a
> good patch. Or I could make the default document a setting,
> and it could be a schema patch. It's a patch either way.
> 
>   Pro: pretty straight-forward.
>   Con: Yelp will still load the Unity-based desktop help
>   for users who choose to download stock GNOME.
> 
> 3) Yelp could have some desktop detection, and choose the
> default URI accordingly. There's no standard way to find
> this information. There've been sporadic xdg-list threads
> on the topic. It's always shot down. We might be able to
> do some sort of process or service detection.
> 
>   Pro: paves the way for Yelp to be used as-is to serve
>   other desktops.
>   Con: probably only ever going to be 90% accurate.
> 
> My priority is making sure that people get accurate and
> useful help, regardless of what desktop or distro they're
> running. So whatever it takes to make that happen, that's
> what I'll do.
> 

Thanks a lot for the detailed analysis and for presenting the options.
Would anyone from the Ubuntu Docs team like to comment on these to bring
this forward?

Regards,
David.


-- 
David Planella
Ubuntu Translations Coordinator
www.ubuntu.com / www.davidplanella.wordpress.com
www.identi.ca/dplanella / www.twitter.com/dplanella
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 490 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc/attachments/20110228/e41483c5/attachment.pgp>