Return-Path: Delivered-To: apmail-cocoon-dev-archive@www.apache.org Received: (qmail 63498 invoked from network); 13 May 2004 15:32:17 -0000 Received: from hermes.apache.org (HELO mail.apache.org) (209.237.227.199) by minotaur-2.apache.org with SMTP; 13 May 2004 15:32:17 -0000 Received: (qmail 18190 invoked by uid 500); 13 May 2004 15:32:15 -0000 Delivered-To: apmail-cocoon-dev-archive@cocoon.apache.org Received: (qmail 18007 invoked by uid 500); 13 May 2004 15:32:12 -0000 Mailing-List: contact dev-help@cocoon.apache.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk list-help: list-unsubscribe: list-post: Reply-To: dev@cocoon.apache.org Delivered-To: mailing list dev@cocoon.apache.org Received: (qmail 17784 invoked by uid 98); 13 May 2004 15:32:10 -0000 Received: from bdelacretaz@apache.org by hermes.apache.org by uid 82 with qmail-scanner-1.20 (clamuko: 0.70. Clear:RC:0(66.111.0.243):. Processed in 0.170906 secs); 13 May 2004 15:32:10 -0000 X-Qmail-Scanner-Mail-From: bdelacretaz@apache.org via hermes.apache.org X-Qmail-Scanner: 1.20 (Clear:RC:0(66.111.0.243):. Processed in 0.170906 secs) Received: from unknown (HELO confixx.bestiole.ch) (66.111.0.243) by hermes.apache.org with SMTP; 13 May 2004 15:32:09 -0000 Received: from [192.168.1.33] (lsn-boi-catv-c121-p001.vtx.ch [212.147.121.1]) by confixx.bestiole.ch (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id i4DFVo409097 for ; Thu, 13 May 2004 17:31:50 +0200 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v613) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed To: dev@cocoon.apache.org From: Bertrand Delacretaz Subject: [RT] distributing docs in JavaHelp format Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 17:31:48 +0200 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.613) X-Spam-Rating: hermes.apache.org 1.6.2 0/1000/N X-Spam-Rating: minotaur-2.apache.org 1.6.2 0/1000/N Sorry about another wild idea about our docs, but this one looks closer than many, so I'll try to inspire/motivate someone to jump in ;-) JavaHelp [3], as the name implies, is a java-based help system that runs client-side. Uses HTML 3.2 files for content, with a couple of metadata files, and provides full-text indexing and author-maintained indexes, the whole thing ("helpset") can be packed in a jar. It seems like it would be fairly easy to generate JavaHelp documents from our docs, see [1] for example. This would have many advantages IMHO: -Website and wiki docs together as a single source of information. -Efficient client-side full-text search. -Improving authored indexes incrementally is possible by adding keywords and marking important words in our docs (see in the above example) when someone has time to do it, no upfront work required. -No additional load on ASF servers (even less assuming people would use this more than website docs). -No need to change our docs format or infrastructure. -Happy users, most probably ;-) What's needed: -Generate a simplified HTML 3.2 format from both xdocs and wiki pages (a couple of pipelines) -Generate the Javahelp helpset, TOC, map and index files (more simple pipelines) -Ant tasks to automate this (some projects have them apparently, see [2]) So, if anyone has more copious free time than me, you could be the Savior Of Our Docs until we have a better web-based solution ;-) -Bertrand [1] http://www.onjava.com/lpt/a/4285 [2] http://nbbuild.netbeans.org/nonav/nbantext-javadoc/org/netbeans/ nbbuild/JHIndexer.html [3] http://java.sun.com/products/javahelp/