gnome help browser [was Re: Request for delaying stable release: Multi-currency code stillnot mature enough

[Linas Vepstas]

On Sun, Dec 29, 2002 at 08:04:30PM -0900, Stanley Long was heard to remark:
> More modules and smaller project code are favored here.

Yes, but every time we do this, we get accused of creating 'dependency
hell'.  :-) 

> Chris Lyttle wrote:
> > 
> > One last thing, which is relatively minor but I would like some input
> > from you all on, is it was suggested to me last night to drop the
> > internal GnuCash help browser in favor of using whatever GNOME standard
> > defined one is available. I don't have a problem with this (in fact I
> > believe we eventually should do this, just wasn't considering it for
> > this release). 

Yes, I agree, eventually.

(Bit of history: gnucash had a help browser before there was any
gnome support for help browsing).

> > I've discovered several shortcoming's with the present
> > help browser which I've prevailed on David to fix up, but still run into
> > problems. The way I've setup the docs module now this wouldn't have a
> > major impact on the docs, but it would change several things in GnuCash
> > itself;
> > 1) No search functionality - We could use possibly an internal search
> > function to find pages, but it would require what I regard as to much
> > effort for little gain.

This is indeed the #1 concern.  Although I personally don't use
the search featue in gnucash, I'm the one who insisted on getting it in
there.  Let me preach: 

Search, in general, is a critical feature, getting more critical every 
year, and is often poorly provided and implemented.  When its good, 
e.g. google, it blows the other away.

One of the usability problems I'm constantly running into is figuring
out how to get to documentation, and how to find stuff in it.  I know
its there: man pages, /usr/share/blahblah/*.html, gnu info, but 
'apropos' misses the mark most of the time, 'apt-cache search' is
pretty effective but far from ideal. Every time I use gnu-info, its a
stuggle.  And the page in /usr/share/blahblah/*html are *never* indexed
or searchable.

So, to me, gnucash search is my little stand against this flood of
disorganized data.  Don't have to remember where stuff is, where to
find it.  A good search feature short-cuts through the table-of-contents,
it short-ciruits the index, it takes you to where you want to go.

Personally, I'd rank searchable gnucash documentation number one on
the documentation scale of 'must-have' features.  

Can we prevail on someone in the gnome2 devel group to add search to 
the gnome help browser?  How hard can this be?  Can we add it ourselves 
to gnome help, so that all gnome apps can make use of it?  The gnome 
guys are pretty accomadating usually.


> > 2) Removal of indexing - the present scheme based indexing would now be
> > handled by the external help browser
> > 3) Change of help button functions - this is probably the most major
> > thing, changing the help functions internally to use the standard gnome
> > functions to launch help and the help menu items to do the same.
> > 
> > Some advantages to doing this are;
> > 1) Less code to fix/maintain - its handled by the larger GNOME project
> > 2) Ability to launch/read the help independently of GnuCash
> > 3) Future improvements to the GNOME help system automatically usable by
> > GnuCash

All of these are very good reasons.  How much work is it to change?
Is the effort to change worth it?  How badly broken is the current
gnucash help system?

I guess I'm not sure about what's currently broken, so I don't see
much advantage in changing.  I don't see how a change will fix anything
that's currently broken.

--linas

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pub  1024D/01045933 2001-02-01 Linas Vepstas (Labas!) <linas@linas.org>
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