Re: documentation questions

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:

> Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 12:01:21 +0100
> From: Reinout van Schouwen <reinout@gmail.com>
> To: abiword-dev@abisource.com
> Subject: Re: documentation questions
>
>
> Hubert,
>
> On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 21:20:37 -0500, Hubert Figuiere <hfiguiere@teaser.fr> wrote:
>
> > What is wrong with using AbiWord ?
>
> That the AbiWord format wasn't meant as a on-screen help format!

Using abiword format natively rather than converting to HTML might be
interesting and push developement in new directions.

I think part of the early hope in using Abiword files is that it would be
possible to generate DocBook and fit in with the native help systems on
Linux and Unix distributions and take advantage of the existing tools and
infrastructure but that hasn't happened yet.
Presumably better interfaces with docbook tools would open us up to
standard translation helper tools?

> > Seriously, not using AbiWord for our own purpose shows that we are just
> > lame and don't even trust own thing. "Eat your own dog food".
>
> Of course not. The abw format is excellent for example documents,
> templates etc. But you want online help to be viewed in whatever
> format is default on the platform you're using it on. Consistency!

Doing things differently on every platform creates extra hassle and for it
to be worth doing there really needs to be some added value.

If you are concerned about being able to Print out the documentation it
might be a good improvement to make it availabe online in PDF format.

Converting to HTML and then compiling to Microsoft HTML is currently
doable, and I think would actually be worth doing because it would provide
indexed and fully searchable help files. I dont know about Apple but
converting to the standard help system on Gnome would mean we'd actually
lose the search function we have in our current HTML help files.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape, Draw Freely http://inkscape.org
Abiword is Awesome http://abisource.com
Received on Sun Jan 16 19:07:28 2005