[Libreoffice] The future of help [was: Re: Deleting Java from Base]

[Cesare Leonardi]

Hi, i'm not subscribed to the list. Please keep me CCed.

> On 2010-12-03 at 14:40 +0100, Christian Lohmaier wrote:
>
>> Start with stuff that /any/ user would see.
>> My list would start with:
>> Fulltext search in Help (i.e. <F1>) - that uses lucene and requires java
>
> That one might be actually easy - when the wikihelp is online, I'd
> default to not building the internal help at all, and instead focus on
> converting it from the wiki version to the platform-native (Windows /
> MacOSX / Gnome / KDE [but IIRC, KDE was able to read the Gnome's help
> natively too]) for the releases.  And cut all the help-related code ;-)
>
> Objections / support / thoughts?

I'll try to explain why, in my opinion, is not a good idea to move the 
LibreOffice help on the internet. I'm sure that there will be numerous 
improvements from a developer perspective but i see also some losses 
from some users point of view.

Now, LibreOffice is normally usable without the need of the help, but if 
i need to write formulas in Calc or macros, the help is simply 
indispensable.

My concerns are related to the need of an internet connection to be able 
to consult the help. Today high speed adsl internet access is rather 
spread but consider that at least here in Italy there are yet many 
places where the only viable option to connect to the internet is 
through modem 56k or through GPRS/UMTS, where available. But in the last 
case, rates are not flat, so there are limits on the user traffic or 
connection duration. Satellite is too expensive.

Also, OpenOffice/LibreOffice is used by many low budget entity, like 
primary and secondary schools, associations, for which internet access 
is not something that can be taken for granted or considered to be high 
speed. Many of them will have to print from the internet the help pages 
that they need or do without help.

Then business. In workplaces not every employee has full access to the 
internet: sometimes is forbidden, sometimes is limited to specific 
sites. In these cases administrators will have to open their firewall to 
specific sites (hoping that there is an administrator) or someone will 
print documentations from the internet or the employee will have to do 
without help.

These are (not so corner) cases that will see a loss of functionality, 
that will not be able to do something that they were able do before or 
that will be able to do it with more difficulties.

Please, since this is something not yet effective, consider more deeply 
the choice to remove the local help.
Is theren't a solution that can merge the advantage of an online 
editable help with a locally available help? The local help can't be 
built at release time from the wikihelp you are setting up?

Regards.

Cesare.