[Sugar-devel] [GSoC 2013] Interested in "Implement help mechanism for activities using Mallard"

[Kalpa Welivitigoda]

On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 1:53 AM, Gonzalo Odiard <gonzalo at laptop.org> wrote:

> +10
>

Many thanks to Bastein for focusing us all on the topic again.


>
> We need use the easier possible way to write (and translate) the docs.
> I don't know if there are wysiwyg tools to write the XML files for Mallard,
> if not, is a big step backward.
>
>
There is FoieGras [1] which wa also a GSoC project from GNOME in 2008. I
have mailed Buddhika [2] who was the GSoC student for that project and he
is also from the same university as mine, University of Moratuwa. I'll
update with the status of FoieGras once Buddhika replies.

If I may summaries up to now,

Although the project idea says to implement a help system using Mallard, we
can extend it, write help files in plain text and convert them to desired
forms (Mallard, html etc) so that we can present them in several possible
ways.

Should we output only in Mallard format? I don't see any advantage right
now, since we have the capability to expand.

Since it is plain text, I think it's better to use MarkDown as the markup
language. Anyway once I hear from Buddhika, I'll drop a mail to sugar-devel
asking developers for their preference in markup language to be used.

[1] https://live.gnome.org/ProjectMallard/FoieGras
[2] http://mytechgossips.com/2007/08/24/end-of-a-great-three-months/

Gonzalo
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 5:19 PM, Bastien <bzg at laptop.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> translation comes after the docs have been written.
>>
>> The main barrier is not dependancies for translation tools,
>> it's about *writing* documentation.
>>
>> Hence the idea of using a plain text light markup language.
>>
>> Maybe we could run an informal poll about this in the Sugar
>> community to get a sense of what current devs are comfortable
>> with?  If they are comfortable with using MarkDown, I'd favor
>> using this.
>>
>> Such feedback would be interesting anyway.
>>
>> --
>>  Bastien
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>
>
>


-- 
Best Regards,

Kalpa Welivitigoda
Junior Treasurer | Electrical Engineering Society
Undergraduate | Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Moratuwa
Sri Lanka
http://about.me/callkalpa
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