This is an official Linux Mint help-channel, as I have understood, so what happened felt weird. I asked a question if it's some brilliant new idea for programs to offer documentation only on online format, no man page, no info page, no help-viewer format (don't know what format it uses, but it's graphical and has hyper-text with images supported - basically an op of this channel should know the default help viewer and also, since Mint by default, is targeted on desktops and there even isn't an install image for install without graphical desktop environment. His first advice was man pages, and some strange theory of meaning of online... Let me quote my question, and his first answers:
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0426 < Sir_Robin> hey - someone tell me, is this really what developers have decided to do rather than provide local manuals, or are there some separate packages you can install to *not* get those "Do you want to view this manual online?" popups? I don't! No! That's why man, info and the graphical Help applications are! I'm guessing no?
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0427 <@djph> Sir_Robin: er, what?
0427 <@djph> use the manpage?
0428 <@djph> Sir_Robin: note that "online" (at least in UNIX and UNIX-likes) tends to mean the digital manpage (or gnu infopage) locally installed to the machine; not necessarily "something on some website"
0428 <@djph> this is opposed to the "offline" manual (7 or 8 4" thick 3-ring binders)
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0451 < Sir_Robin> djph: umm, lately I've noticed many XFCE, Gnome or just GTK (also some Qt/KDE apps possibly) having no local help available - Normally if I choose help from menu, many applications still (like gedit) show the graphical help-browser, but more and more just confirm if you want to open the online documentation (and no, there's no other option, except cancel viewing help) - today one app ...
0451 < Sir_Robin> = ...actually didn't even say "Documentation" under Help-menu - it said "Online Documentation"
0451 <@djph> no idea then, GUI stuff is all a wasteland
I tried, but soon my behaviour wasn't at it's best either. However I was just being sarcastic, because he was truthfully being obnoxious, having missed not only content of my question but apparently also the nature of this distro and meaning of that channel - he tried to put this on me, for not specifically mentioning I was talking of graphical programs. Of course at this point I had already made it extremely clear, as you can see from quotes - I was trying to calmly explain the problem, and his response was "GUI is wasteland", and then he blames me for not first stating I was talking about GUI. I had when he said that, but let's continue:
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0451 < Sir_Robin> I'm talking of growing amount of GUI desktop applications, at least those I have on Mint XFCE
0453 < Sir_Robin> pffft - are you teasing me? You knew I was talking about GUI app, no? I know man, info and mentioned the GUI help application, why did yoiu even answer if.... never mind.... help channel my...s
0454 < Sir_Robin> I'm going to forums
0454 <@djph> nope, you didn't specify GUI at first
0455 <@djph> or if you did, it was slipped in there after man and info and i just missed it. but sure, let's go straight to "people are just screwing with me
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0455 < Sir_Robin> yeah, I was talking about graphical help viewer that we all use in console... runs on svgalib AND framebuffer
0456 <@djph> 'graphic... wha
0456 <@djph> "man" and "info" aren't graphical by any stretch of the imagination.
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0456 < Sir_Robin> where didi I claim they were?
0456 < Sir_Robin> show?
0457 <@djph> uh, you literally just said "I was talking about graphical help we all use in console" ...
0457 <@djph> ... I have no idea what you're actually asking after anymore.
QBASIC was one of the first applications that had built-in documentation. Actually, a manual, but we called books that had documentation of program manuals, documentation was documentation whether on book or inside a program.
Was that relevant? I don't think it was, it was good reminiscing in memories for me, but relevant? I believe just as relevant as his speech of offline meaning a book and online something that's stored on computer. I don't know if his even made sense, maybe the words were sometime used that way, but I've never heard of such in all my reading about computers and their history before I existed even.
Here's the rest:
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0457 < Sir_Robin> I was referring to my original comment which you claimed I mentioned no GUI at all
0457 < Sir_Robin> it was sarcasm
0458 < theproffesor> you make very little sense
0458 <@djph> ... in either event, I'm out.
0458 <@djph> good luck
0458 < Sir_Robin> no continue if you want, I still haven't finished setting up my self-hosted cloud
0502 < Sir_Robin> theproffesor: if you meant my first question, it was perfectly sensical - the nonsense started when he didn't realize I wasn't talking about console and started calling GUI a wasteland; same guy always tells people this is for seeking help, not for chat - I didn't know mocking Linux Mint (which by default is GUI desktop OS) user interface development on linuxmint-help channell... weird.
0503 < Sir_Robin> this channell is useless for real help
0503 -!- Sir_Robin [robsku@SpotChat-d60f11.kapsi.fi] has left #linuxmint-help []