Closed Bug 123023 Opened 23 years ago Closed 23 years ago

Fix various mistakes in help files

Categories

(Documentation Graveyard :: Help Viewer, defect)

Product:
Documentation Graveyard
Component:
Help Viewer
Platform:
x86
All
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 95770

People

(Reporter: mkaply, Assigned: oeschger)

Details

Attachments

(1 file)

Non context diff
31.97 KB, patch
timeless
: review+
Details | Diff | Splinter Review
This patch fixes some various problems in help related to translation. I have attached a normal diff because it makes the patch a little clearer. Here is what it does: 1. Adds DOCTYPE and META tags to all html. 2. Changes &#151; and some occurences of a ú to &mdash; 3. Fixes some mismatched <H?> tags 4. Fixes some missing or extra </A> tags 5. Changes two occurrences of FONT FACE=Courier to <TT> 6. Fixes some "" in nav_help.html 7. Removed a </br>
Attached patch Non context diff — — Splinter Review
I'll attach a context diff if someone to see it. I figured I'd just check it in since I have the changes :)
1. Why not use 4.01: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> instead of <!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> ? 2. The case of the DOCTYPE line is important AFAIK.
im_help.html is on my list of files to kill. as such, i didn't patch it the last time i mass changed help. ian: may we cvs remove it and all references to it/its ilk? [note: mozilla help is not used by netscape]
That's fine, timeless. Thanks. Netscape writes/overwrites all the HTML files it needs in the commercial build process. It *doesn't* overwrite the images however, and needs a few, um, IM specific GIFs that are in that images subdir there. So don't blow away any GIFs.
mkaply: did you go in with this patch?
Not yet. Do you want me to change the doctype as Oliver mentioned? also, you mentioned Netscape just overwrite the help in Mozilla. Is there any plan to work with Netscape to bring the two more in sync? It would be nice if Mozilla had good help content for vendors to take - they shouldn't have to create their own.
Regarding mkaply's comment about Mozilla and help content: Mozilla is a developer platform, not a product for end-users. If vendors want to create their own product on top of Mozilla, it seems that they should be obligated to provide whatever spectrum of support they want, beginning with product help content. The Netscape help content is vendor-specific, with references to Netscape components and tie-backs to the Netscape site. The Netscape help will continue to diverge from whatever help content Mozilla has. Most applications built on Mozilla add or have their own UI, and therefore need their own help content anyhow.
If this is the case, then Mozilla should not provide any help content at all. Right now the help is a mishmash of Mozilla and Netscape references, and old references (from the 0.6 timeframe) Has anyone asked Netscape if they would contribute their help to Mozilla?
People have asked for help for Mozilla, not specifically the NS help. In discussions with Mozilla.org people a few years back, they didn't want the NS help, but did want the help system/viewer. Which makes sense. The code underlying the help system is an open-source effort, but help content development isn't quite. For better or worse, Netscape checked in the help content, "seeding" whatever further development was needed. There are volunteers who are cleaning up (or at least they offered to clean up) the help, scrubbing it of Netscape references. But there aren't Moz community writers creating entirely new content. The people who typically ask for help for Moz perceive it as an end-user app and not as a developer platform. I doubt they'll change their minds about this. We'll reexamine the help content and whether it makes any sense at all to check in Netscape content periodically (with the assumption that some folks will clean it up). At the very least, we need to be much more explicit about the help content being out of sync, usually, with the UI, so vendors won't make the assumption that the help is appropriate for their distributions as is.
Incidentally, I read that XHTML entity support is in now, so theoretically we should be able to move the Netscape and Mozilla references to a different file if the helps are converted to XHTML.
Attachment #67457 - Flags: review+
As a vendor who does produce a browser, I think the help situation does need to be much better documented. I went ahead and sent out the current Mozilla helps to translation because there is not much else I can do - I do not have funding to write new helps. In some cases, no help might be better than what Mozilla has. Incidentally, if the Netscape help were checked in, I certainly have people on my team that would volunteer to help clean it up. Hopefully some of the syntax cleanup would make it back to Netscape.
Michael, I thought IBM gets Netscape commercial drops, no? Does IBM's OS/2 browser alter the interface in any way? In which case, you'd have to modify the help in some way to make it correct. One of the distinctions between open source software and proprietary software is that the proprietary versions offer documentation and product support, which includes help content. On that logic, IBM should be obligated to provide support for a product it brands. But if adding the documentation help proliferate Moz technology, then maybe that outweighs other considerations. Perhaps you should contact me directly to discuss. I'm curious how IBM's version is built (what is the commercial Netscape version of the builds for?). Also, if I knew your schedule, we could sync up our help drops with that. We could drop all of the NS help into Mozilla, complete with NS links and references. If some of our help is served, from the Netscape site, what would IBM do? Delete every and all NS link? What if the NS help had a seamless integration of content that was local and some that was served? Would IBM mind if IBM users went to the NS site for instructions on how to use the product? We used to avoid Moz drops in part because we wanted to optimize for NS help, with links to the NS site and with NS terminology, etc. But if Moz is fine with our NS references, then perhaps we could check in there. But if people "cleaned it up" and stripped out NS references, we'd have a hard time taking it back. If we did take it back, we'd have to put in the NS links/refs, and potentially add more...and then the cleanup cycle would have to begin again. Of course, we could write in such a way as to restrict our NS refs, but I don't think we'd be serving NS well. Or we could pursue some XHTML option, as you suggest. We'll figure this out...In the meantime, if we are obligated to provide you with NS help (via the commercial builds), contact me and perhaps I can provide those to you directly. Or at least we can talk about the general Moz help issue, and maybe change things so that you can have more up-to-date files to translate.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 95770 ***
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 23 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Summary: Fix various mistakes in help files. → Fix various mistakes in help files
v
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
.
Component: Help → User
Product: Browser → Documentation
Version: Trunk → unspecified
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