Online (yelp) Help System

[Purrmaster]

I've been trying out Mint and it is impressive. The user friendliness is good and the thing just.... works.

One thing seems to be missing though and that's an in the OS help system. Or more to the point, Help files. Online (by online I don't mean Internet based) help systems are common in commercial operating systems. I think Mint would benefit from such a thing.

As I understand it, there is already a help program (I think it's called GNU yelp or something) that looks pretty polished. It's just the written documentation itself that needs to be put together.

The first place help files would be good to have is the Control Center. The help files could probably be fairly short but still be useful.

I'm aware that this is probably much easier said than done. And perhaps it isn't feasible. If the developers need someone to help write the documentation, I volunteer. I suspect it would take many people to get the help files written up and a few more to format them for yelp. But if you need another documentation writer, I'd be happy to help out, if you need it.

[Habitual]

this work on your system?

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yelp man:date

[Purrmaster]

I'll check once I boot it up. Is this a way of telling me there are such help files that I simply haven't found?

[Habitual]

Sure is:
Terminal >

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env | grep -i manpath

Mine is MANPATH=/usr/local/man:/usr/share/man

but I'm on another distro (OpenSUSE)
my 10.10 LTS VM tho' spits back nothing from that command, as the user or root.


try this also:

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grep MANDB_MAP /etc/manpath.config

outputs on my 10.10 LTS VM

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# MANDB_MAP      global_manpath   [relative_catpath]
MANDB_MAP   /usr/man      /var/cache/man/fsstnd
MANDB_MAP   /usr/share/man      /var/cache/man
MANDB_MAP   /usr/local/man      /var/cache/man/oldlocal
MANDB_MAP   /usr/local/share/man   /var/cache/man/local
MANDB_MAP   /usr/X11R6/man      /var/cache/man/X11R6
MANDB_MAP   /opt/man      /var/cache/man/opt

YMMV but if it does, we'll dial it in.
Don't despair!

[Purrmaster]

I see now. Yelp can display manual pages.

Manual pages are good, no doubt about that. But I was thinking something more along the lines of help files for things like Control Center. I.e. You click on the question mark or "help" icon and it pops up something like:

"Welcome to Mint control center. This is where you can customize Mint to suit your preferences. Click on a heading to get more information about each control:

(Hyperlink to Appearance)

Appearance. You can use Appearance to change the way your computer looks and feels.

Theme lets you choose from a number of premade looks for your computer. You can choose from the themes already present, download new themes from the Internet, or customize a theme to your liking......."

And then you have a brief, hyperlinked walkthrough on Themes.

That's kind of what I had in mind. As I said, I'm sure this is way easier said than done. Writing and formatting the documents would probably be time consuming. But if something like it could be put together, I think it would help out Mint, in general.

I didn't want to sound selfish, so that's why I offered to help with some writing.

Man pages are great if you are using command line stuff. But I think GUI specific help files, easily accessed by a mouse click or F1, would be grand.

[Habitual]

I'm on OpenSUSE and we have that already.

http://susepaste.org/28146043
and clicking that Help button gives me http://susepaste.org/80691402

I couldn't agree more re:"I think it would help out Mint"

[Purrmaster]

Links to web or wiki pages would be ok, but I think it would be preferable to have help files that are stored locally and therefore accessible offline.

As I said, I'd be happy to help out, if it's wanted. But I realize that this may be an idea that is just impractical at this juncture. I could try a quick and dirty write up of something but I'd have to study the UI in great detail first.

[netherstar]

On my Linux Mint 11 system the help files are in /usr/share/gnome/help, but I cannot access the files from within the program (help | contents).
If I navigate to the en_GB folder under a program name subdirectory I can use yelp to show the help file (yelp openshot.xml)

[netherstar]

Check out "Re:Help With Help" on this forum.
Post by Vincent Vermeulen on Sept 4, 2011.