Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 23:40:53 +0000 From: Nik Clayton <nik@freebsd.org> To: Jordan Hubbard <jkh@osd.bsdi.com> Cc: nik@freebsd.org, jhb@freebsd.org, doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Doc Build broken *sigh* Message-ID: <20010225234053.B42927@canyon.nothing-going-on.org> In-Reply-To: <20010225110400R.jkh@osd.bsdi.com>; from jkh@osd.bsdi.com on Sun, Feb 25, 2001 at 11:04:00AM -0800 References: <20010224224643.A64525@canyon.nothing-going-on.org> <20010224125914Q.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> <20010225133926.A71805@canyon.nothing-going-on.org> <20010225110400R.jkh@osd.bsdi.com>
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On Sun, Feb 25, 2001 at 11:04:00AM -0800, Jordan Hubbard wrote: > From: Nik Clayton <nik@freebsd.org> > Subject: Re: Doc Build broken *sigh* > Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 13:39:26 +0000 > > > Doc packaging is a solved problem. Take a look at > > > > ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/packages/ > > > > If you can sanely present that as a list of {doc x language x format} > > options in sysinstall then go for it. > > Erm, I shouldn't need to add anything extra to sysinstall if docs > are already "proper" packages, e.g. have their own subcategory > and appear in the INDEX. That's what I was referring to - what > were you referring to? :) Docs are available as packages in as much as you can do pkg_add -r ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/packages/mumble and get a document installed in the specified format. There are currently 316 packages to choose from, which is what you get when have 21 different documents available in seven different output formats in half a dozen languages. As we add more documents (and translations of existing documents) that number is going to go through the roof. I submit that simply having one big "documentation" category is not the way forward here, and that sysinstall is going to have to ask the user something like STEP 1 Please choose from this list of documents: [ ] FAQ [ ] Handbook [ ] Porter's Handbook ... STEP 2 Please select the language and character sets you want your documentation formatted in. [ ] US English (ISO 8859-1) [ ] Spanish (ISO 8859-1) [ ] Japanes (eucJP) ... STEP 3 Please select the format you want [ ] One big HTML file (great for searching/printing) [ ] Lots of small HTML files (better for web browsing) [ ] Postscript [ ] PDF [ ] Plain text ... Even that's not perfect -- what happens if the user selects a document at step 1, and selects a language in step 2 that the document hasn't been translated to yet? You could swap steps 1 and 2 around, but it's still an ugly interface for the user to have to navigate through. I don't have the headspace at the moment for this sort of UI problem. Would libh, with it's UI primitives, make any of this easier? I also have no idea how our other operating system brethren solve this problem. N -- Internet connection, $19.95 a month. Computer, $799.95. Modem, $149.95. Telephone line, $24.95 a month. Software, free. USENET transmission, hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Thinking before posting, priceless. Somethings in life you can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard. -- Graham Reed, in the Scary Devil Monastery To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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