Michael, What would a new system's advantage over man be? For example, if a new interface to manpages were created, that might eliminate some of the initial learning curve some might say manpages present to users. Actually, I think manpages already solve your 5 points without need anything new. Perhaps a manpage-to-X/HTML solution that allows reading them on the fly in a browser could be used to make accessing them easier. So, what this comes down to is creating an easier way to make manpages, if what I am suggesting makes sense. ________________________________________________________________________ Basil Mohamed Gohar abu_hurayrah@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx www.basilgohar.com On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 20:28 -0600, Michael Cronenworth wrote: > Far too often I find myself looking for non-existent man pages, Google > results, or help menus in GNU/Linux software. What's the problem? There > is no single, reliable, standardized documentation system that is > universally accepted or appreciated. Yes, what I'm about to describe > should obsolete man, info, and all the other dozen "help" documentation > found in all the Fedora packages. > > Problem case out of the way: Fedora should pioneer a GNU/Linux > documentation system that meets these criteria: > 1. Lightweight > The entire system should not demand hundreds of megs of fonts, > images, or other non-reusable requirements. I'm looking at you texlive. > Recommendations: SQLite, ncurses, GTK. Existing toolkits; not new ones. > 2. CLI and GUI front-ends > Allow users to be presented to a universal and familiar front-end no > matter where they are. The parts should also be separable so that, for > instance, if there is no X requirement in a said environment, the help > packages should not require QT, GTK, etc. > 3. Universal formatting > Obvious criteria, however, application specific formatting should be > allowed as an optional addition after a standard format has been met. > 4. Easy to use creation tools > It shouldn't take a programmer background to write help > documentation. Be it WYSIWYG tools or a simple XML-like (hey, or even > XML) language to create documentation pages. > 5. Global access > You should be able to access any and all documentation for all > software through a single window, be it X or console, without having to > open the corresponding program. > > Optional criteria: > 1. Platform independence (for use on non-GNU/Linux systems) > > Feel free to rip me apart. To me, and I'm sure most standard Linux > users, documentation for /any/ piece of software is a nightmare, even if > you are the original author. It should not be that way! > > Regards, > Michael > -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
