On Thu, 2011-07-07 at 07:52 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: > On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 7:26 AM, Mathias Bauer <mathias_ba...@gmx.net> wrote: > > Moin, > > > > I know how the help files where written at Sun/Oracle: the writers took > > Writer for the text and used a set of basic macros to put some markup > > into the files. Then they used an xslt to convert the document into the > > xhp format. > > > > I can't speak for the help writers, but most probably that isn't > > necessary as we shouldn't ask those who created help content in the past > > but those who will do it in the future. > > > > IMHO using a well-established, maintained tool instead of a home brewn > > set of macros that probably has lost its maintainer would be a huge > > improvement. > > > > There's another aspect that we should see: extension developers might > > also want to add help content to their extensions. As until now there is > > no tool available for the public, extension developers had a problem. > > DITA would be an improvement for them. > > > > That is an interesting idea. The modularity of DITA should allow a > downstream consumer of AOOo to customize the doc and generate their > own materials relatively easily, using a standard tool set. For > example, someone could create a Mac-only customized version of AOOo, > add some additional help topics, but then generate doc that omitted > all references to any Windows or Linux specific topics.
More importantly, Community Members could contribute patches to the help documentation which could then be easily adopted. The help has been one component that has needed some more love for sometime. It was hard to drum up interest, if DITA were a way to lower some barriers, then great. -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant.
