From kde-devel Mon Apr 04 12:16:07 2011 From: Harald Sitter Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2011 12:16:07 +0000 To: kde-devel Subject: GSoC Idea: KHelpCenter Rewrite Message-Id: <201104041416.11868.sitter () kde ! org> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-devel&m=130191960215339 MIME-Version: 1 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="--===============0016630103==" --===============0016630103== Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="nextPart1614388.UlZAfQ4FJ9"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --nextPart1614388.UlZAfQ4FJ9 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Aloha! Here is something I have been thinking about for quite some time... Since this has become a candidate for TLDR here is the short version: KHC is no goody, I want to make it more goody, what we need is better looks= =20 and integration of web content. I would like to propose that as GSoC projec= t. Long version: =2D Intro Maybe it is just me, but KHelpCenter does not really live up to its potenti= al.=20 It does not look all that visually compelling, I did not see the search=20 feature working *properly* in years (though that might also be because some= one=20 at Kubuntu decided it would be a good idea to patch away the search tab ;))= =20 and it does not bring all available information to the user. =2D About the Internet Let me in particular reason a bit on that last point as I find the current= =20 state of affairs rather interesting. At least to me it would appear that using online documentation rather than= =20 docbook documentation (or a combination of both) is become a lot more=20 attractive these days. They certainly both have advantages and disadvantage= s,=20 but what we should acknowledge is that the existence of services such as=20 userbase.kde.org, or stackexchange.com if you will, adds a whole new dimens= ion=20 to how documentation (read: knowledge) gets shared. Whatever you may think of the whole online vs. offline documentation topic,= =20 there is a very valid gain for the user in bringing the two closer together= =2E=20 Someone who has internet access and knows how to use a search site will mor= e=20 likely try to look for information online rather than offline. This is howe= ver=20 not mutually exclusive with having offline documentation nor with having an= =20 application dedicated to present relevant information to the user. Actually I would argue that there should be a symbiosis of them. =2D Mixin Offline documentation provides a solid base of information on a vast amount= of=20 topics/applications. But imagine how cool it would be if we could enrich th= is=20 solid base with additional unicorn sparkles and rainbows from the mighty an= d=20 all-knowing internet. =46or example: you are reading up on Amarok in KHC because for some reason = the=20 audio quality is not quite what it should be. You are skimming through the= =20 handbook but there is nothing regarding your problem. Oh! But what is this?= A=20 tiny box next to the handbook that goes "Common Problems with Amarok: Sound= is=20 crap[link] My N900 is not detected[link]". Cool. So you click the first lin= k=20 and get all the information you need to fix the problem. (Turns out someone= was=20 using Phonon's Xine backend :P). Interestingly enough you also find out that there is a brand new awesome=20 version of Amarok available, you get directions on how to upgrade and live= =20 happily ever after. =2D Let's crowdsource it! We all know that content on the internet is not always all that helpful and= =20 not always all that well written, so we could/should do something about tha= t=20 to. How about letting people rate content, add the information on what they= =20 were searching for into the mix and here comes semantic help :) =2D And Video! Now, I have only been talking about textual information, but let us not for= get=20 about other types of media. In particular screencasts. I happen to know some people who actually tend to go to youtube to find out= how=20 to do something rather than google for it. And indeed videos are a very=20 convenient way to share knowledge. It is a bit of shame that this is not mo= re=20 tightly integrated into the help center, is it not? =2D Summary So, let me sum this up. * I do not think KHC is all that awesome right now. * Dragging information in from the internet is a great opportunity * Supporting multi media content would be terrific * Adding semantics to information would also be jolly awesome. =2D Technical Thoughts =46inally to get a bit of a technical blah in here. On the information=20 "aggregation" side KHC should be very scalable. Getting information from=20 userbase.kde.org and other KDE specific resources is good. But we should al= so=20 keep in mind that most distributions have documentation of their own (onlin= e=20 that is), or screencast services (I know Ubuntu got one). Those should also= =20 nicely integrate. A plugin based approach would seem very useful here. Have a couple of resou= rce=20 providers that a) get information b) search information (c) display information, I am not quite sure about this. Should there actua= lly=20 be formats that can not be broken down to a HTML representation it probably= =20 would make sense to allow, but not enforce, that a plugin can implement the= ir=20 own view for displaying the information... something to think about) Offline documentation search should not use htdig but maybe something like= =20 clucene for deployment reasons mostly. Mixing in online search results as=20 provided by the resource provider plugins. What would be interesting is redoing the UI using QML (because it is so muc= h=20 bling :)), I am not quite sure if that would make all that much sense at th= is=20 point though. What do you think about this? Would this be a good project for GSoC? I would love to get some feedback :) regards, Harald --nextPart1614388.UlZAfQ4FJ9 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) iEYEABECAAYFAk2ZtogACgkQtEYQ1nLyOZGYkgCeNi8FtfKz2cwSYjeDlYOsHl8i qkcAoNFjTwJvq9gxxRNeOGJx3w8jO1QQ =FE7A -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart1614388.UlZAfQ4FJ9-- --===============0016630103== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline >> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe << --===============0016630103==--