Ubuntu desktop documentation scope and location

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Hi Daniele,

On 2022-04-12 17:20, Daniele Procida wrote:
>>>>> May be worth mentioning this page:
>>>>> 
>>>>> https://help.ubuntu.com/rst
>>>>> 
>>>>> It originates from a google docs document. So if you are in
>>>>> a hurry, that's one possibility as a temporary solution.
> 
> Gunnar, are you able to tell me more about this? Despite my previous
> extensive researches, this is a publishing pattern that is new to me.
> Are there other examples of this?

It's not a publishing pattern. It's an exception.

Soon before the Ubuntu 20.04 release, the developers added two links in 
the installer:

https://help.ubuntu.com/rst

https://help.ubuntu.com/bitlocker

There was no content at those locations at first, and I was asked to 
help fix it somehow.

The content resided (still resides) at two discourse pages:

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-installation-on-computers-with-intel-r-rst-enabled/15347

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-installation-on-computers-running-windows-and-bitlocker-turned-on/15338

But the author wanted to convert the discourse contents to static HTML 
pages at h.u.c, so that's how it started. (Without headers etc.) 
However, that instantly resulted in 
<https://launchpad.net/bugs/1874068>, so we started to redirect to the 
discourse URLs instead.

A few months later the author fixed the HTML markup for the /rst page to 
be more 'mobile device friendly', I added header/footer using 'the 
help.ubuntu.com style', and that makes up the current page at 
<https://help.ubuntu.com/rst>. The author's intention was to do the same 
for <https://help.ubuntu.com/bitlocker>, but it has not happened yet, so 
it still redirects to the discourse URL.

Nowadays there is also this URL:

https://help.ubuntu.com/activedirectory

which redirects to the server guide here:

https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/service-sssd

( Hey Heather! ;) )

So to summarize: There are currently three URLs which are only known by 
the installers: Two redirects (/bitlocker and /activedirectory) and the 
static page /rst.

Let me take this opportunity to point out a detail on the /rst page 
which I dislike: At the request of the author there is no information at 
that page on how to report documentation bugs. IMNSHO all official 
documentation should let the users know how to report bugs.

Sorry for a somewhat wordy explanation.

-- 
Cheers,

Gunnar Hjalmarsson
https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj