Re: html documentation for kde
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> Is there any use for the kde documentation in html format, that some
> packages generate?
These are all from the modules that I maintain.
> It is not something that KDE is using, and all the documentation is
> available from within the programs and from the khelpcenter. It is just
> that you can also get the documentation through a web browser, over the web
> server or locally.
I created these packages because there are people who use other desktop
environments with just the odd KDE app here or there (just as I use the odd
GNOME app here or there but don't want the whole GNOME installation filling
up my hard disk).
In this sense, there's no guarantee that (say) a kword user would have
khelpcenter or even konqueror. If they don't have some native KDE app that
can read in the docbook files directly, then they have no way to view the
documentation.
Hence the -doc-html packages. This way they can read them in usual HTML
format (and even get at them through the usual doc-base interface).
Note that they're not dependencies of koffice/kdeedu/etc, so the hard-core KDE
user who installs all the metapackages (and presumably has khelpcenter) won't
get them by default.
> It might be useful for some, but is it useful enough to warrant separate
> packages for it?
The alternative is to bundle them in with kword, kspread, etc., and have the
usual KDE users complain about all this extra HTML documentation that they
don't want. This is why they're separate packages.
> Right now only some of the kde modules have documentation
> in this way, and some have not. I think that either they should all have
> it, or these packages should all go.
Well I'm not taking them out simply because hard-core KDE users don't want
them. They can just opt not to install them. :)
> If they are valuable, then it is the question if there should be localized
> versions of the documentation in html too?
Well, I initially provided english docs because I didn't want to create lots
and lots of small packages and I didn't want to make these packages
excessively large since they're primarily for users who don't *want* lots of
KDE stuff on their system. This at least offers the courtesy of having some
docs that you can view; of course this does not address the issue of whether
you can understand them. Not sure what the best plan is there.
> I think these html files just clutter up the installations, and that
> someone might install them not knowing if they are needed or not, "just in
> case", so better get rid of them.
Well, you could say this about half the packages in debian. This is why we
have metapackages (koffice, kdeedu, etc), and this is why they're not
dependencies of the metapackages.
> Those few who want them can very easily generate them.
Well, no. Those few who want them are presumably the ones who don't use KDE
much and have no idea what meinproc is.
> Or is it someone who think they should stay?
/me raises his hand. Oh, and when I first started providing them I got a
personal thank-you from a user, so make that two. :)
Ben. :)
- --
Ben Burton
benb@acm.org | bab@debian.org
Public Key: finger bab@db.debian.org
Your gay mathematics! You're probably hard at work on some homosexual
theorem that will overthrow Christianity! Some toroidal (the most
suspect of all geometries) topology that will in all its sinister proof,
destroy precious family values!!
- Flipper to me on the theology boards
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