[Libreoffice] LibreOffice WikiHelp

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi Sophie,

On 2010-12-11 at 14:35 +0300, Sophie Gautier wrote:

> > I have heard quite some complaints about the missing native language
> > versions already; I am not sure I've explained it well enough
> > previously, but this testing is blocking it.  So please - help me :-)
> 
> I've search for your explanation on our list but didn't find them. 
> Currently we (the localizer team) do not want the localized help to be 
> uploaded on the wiki until we know about the localization process that 
> will be in place.

I have subscribed to the l10n mailing list just on Friday, after I
learned that there were some discussions there I was not aware of until
then.

Now, the explanation about wikihelp.  As you may recall, the conclusion
was described as:

	create help-packs - split out the help for each language
	and simply have no help installed[1], but a web link to on-line
	help[2], and a "download your help-pack here" direction
		+ not even English help would be installed -
		  this will save us 11Mb in the 170Mb download

Also, each and every release notes of betas and even RC1 contained a
note "The help content is not included. We are working on the online
version. Alternatively, it will be possible to install it separately."

It is my mistake that I did not explain the exact way to implement it in
advance, I am sorry for that.

So let me explain why wikihelp:

Wiki is so far the best free tool for collaboration editing I know of.
It gives anyone the freedom to improve things.  With help implemented as
a wiki, any user of the suite can (potentially) just describe the
functionality better, should he/she find out that something is described
wrongly, or just partially.

Also, why should be your native language just a translation of an
English help?  Should you have people that can improve the help, but
cannot speak English, why should they be bound to translating only, when
they can author the text?  Why should be the French help just a
translation of an English help, when it can be an own (better?) version?

This is why I believe implementing the help as a wiki is the best thing
to do.  How does it work:

- for 3.3, I am converting the .xhp files into wiki markup
  - it is now online as http://help.libreoffice.org
  - missing translations yet, I need to polish the tooling first
  - when the tooling is right, I'll add 2-3 more languages, for more
    testing
  - when even that approved, I'll upload the rest

- anything untranslated in the localized versions will be marked
  appropriately
  - a template for that, like {{NeedsTranslation}} + the English version

- after the import is done, and people are happy with it, it will be
  open for account creation
  - for now, please ask me directly if you want to have an account
    there, to edit pages like Main_Page, or Template:*
  - other pages might get rewritten by the import tooling

- after 3.3, I'll start to work on tooling to convert it back to offline
  help
  - to platform native help system
    - Windows/Linux/MacOSX
  - from the engineering point of view, we don't want a home-grown help
    system, as we have now
  - needs more research, to see if we don't lose features etc.

- when done, the wikihelp becomes the authoritative version of the help
  - but we'll still be able to incorporate changes from the .xhp files,
    when merging from OOo
  - we can agree that some of the localized versions would be locked for
    editing, and just taken from .xhp and .sdf files, but I _strongly_
    advise against that

Open questions:

- extended tips
  - cannot be part of the wikihelp, most probably these have to be
    handled separately, and translated using the normal process

- anything else?

> We are the one doing the work and it's a very big work, so please, 
> answer the questions we have asked.
> What if we open the git repository to anybody tomorrow?

As you might have noticed, anybody can ask for the git account, and
anybody with a bigger contribution is offered with write access.

>  will you stay 
> there and spend your nights correcting the bugs newcomers have done or 
> those not taking care of your previous work?

Oh?  Were you following what we are doing on the development mailing
list?  The last months, we have spent days and nights reviewing and
fixing patches from new people.

>  No, you'll go away from 
> such a project that do not care about your contributions and the quality 
> of its product.

Why do you think that people want to break your work?  Do you really
think that making something yourself is more effective than just
reviewing someone else's work?  How could it scale, if you were doing
everything yourself?

> So please, please again, answer the questions Martin asked, the 
> questions I asked, see Rimas and Jean-Baptiste mails too. And do not 
> open the wiki until we all agreed on the workflow, it's really important 
> for our localization team.

Yes, will do, and sorry again that I haven't summarized all this before.
If you can point me to the messages I probably missed due to not being
subscribed to the l10n@ ML, that would be most appreciated.

Thank you,
Kendy