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

[Walter Bender]

On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 11:39 PM, Kalpa Welivitigoda <callkalpa at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
>
> 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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> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>
>
There is perhaps more documentation already written than is generally known
about. For example, there are many activities with pages in the wiki [1]
and efforts such as [2] done by OLPC deployments. Spanish-language versions
abound as well. Coming up with a decent framework which we can populate
from these sources would take us a long ways.

[1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities#Sugar_Activities
[2] http://academy.one-education.org/mod/book/view.php?id=130

regards.

-walter

-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
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