Danek Duvall wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Paul Kasper wrote:
>
>>> Now, with that in mind, you have two options. One is for each package
>>> that wants to participate in this index to deliver one or more files in
>>> a special directory that your service will read and use to build the
>>> index.
>>>
>>> The second possibility is that you'll deliver your information as package
>>> attributes (pointing to URIs), and your service will simply gather all
>>> those attributes and rebuild the index as necessary.
>> Well, we would most likely want to provide short descriptions for each
>> entry and associated metadata to help organize the index. So, I think the
>> first option would be better.
>
> We can attach arbitrary metadata to a package. Within reason, you can pack
> a fair amount of information in there, rather than having to deliver files.
> I'd say that descriptions, URIs, and other metadata-like things needn't
> require any files to be delivered.
That sounds good. I'd prefer a more simplified approach.
>
> Of course, you might choose to do so, regardless. Your service can always
> support both methods, if there are some packages which actually want real
> files delivered.
>
>>> I'll also note that we intend to deliver documentation in the same package
>>> that delivers the functionality. This will likely mostly be man pages for
>>> the core Solaris bits, but also whatever text and html documentation might
>>> come along with the various bits of opensource we ship.
>> So, for man pages, this integration is already established. But, how do
>> you plan to install the text and html documentation...
>
> I'm simply talking about the clutter of stuff that's already being
> delivered in /usr/share/doc (and possibly other places). I don't know that
> I'd consider that "easy to find", and it certainly doesn't quickly lead you
> to external resources. See the "tags and attributes" document Stephen Hahn
> circulated on pkg-discuss a month or so ago for some proposals for standard
> tags for things like a project's website, and feel free to make additional
> comments.
Will do. Thanks. I can't find this on either the archive or the
project page. Does someone know where the latest version is? I'll
ask Stephen if I don't get any pointers.
>
>>> One thing you don't mention is exactly what this index is. Is it an
>>> html page sitting on the system? How do you expect that people will
>>> access this index? How do you expect they'll discover it?
>> My assumption is that it would be an XML file that could be used to
>> deliver the information in whatever format we choose. It could be
>> available as a link on the desktop or main link as part of the package
>> install output. There are a number of ways to get the word out...that
>> will be the easy part. ;)
>
> So you'd want to write a specialized app to read that file, rather than
> pointing a browser at it?
No. I was saying that the index could be constructed as an XML file, but
we could easily transform it to an html file for users to point a browser at.
But, making the index XML would give us more options in the future.
>
>> Thanks for all your feedback. Beyond your feedback, what do you think of
>> the overall need of my proposal?
>
> Given the number of times I've gone trawling through docs.sun.com looking
> for various bits of documentation, I think it could be very convenient if
> it were all indexed (and maybe even cached) locally.
>
> I'd be a bit concerned about the docs being available even for pre-release
> versions of the OS (like Nevada and OpenSolaris), since developers tend to
> be on the bleeding edge, and often the official documentation isn't
> available until close to the end of the release.
Well, we do need to provide a way to distinguish between "official"
documentation (opensolaris.com) and community documentation (opensolaris.org),
but that is an issue that we are currently addressing and this index may
help with the solution.
Paul
>
> Danek
--
Paul Kasper | Information Lead | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | x51546
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