David King (Wednesday, 24. November 2010)

It appears that xsltproc is already installed in my Ubuntu. So, I now want to generate the English html files for myself to make sure I can - what do I type on the command line?

There are two ways to work/start:

1) The standard way is using autotools (automake, autoconf, etc.); you should start with
$ ./autogen.sh ALL_LINGUAS=en
which does some checks and runs automake, autoconf and configure. If everything is ok you will then have a Makefile and can do everything using the "make" command, e.g. $ make help
$ make html-en
$ make html # only if you cofigured with 'ALL_LINGUAS=en' # otherwise all html's are built $ make validate-en # is it still valid DocBook?

2) IMHO the autotools are a) bloated and b) overkill for our project, so I created a Makefile that should "just work"; all you have to do is to type
$ make -f Makefile.GNU ... LINGUAS=en or
$ make -f Makefile.GNU ... # for targets ending with '-en' instead of "make ...".
If some required program is not installed, this "make" will just fail...

If you add "VERBOSE=2" to your 'make' command you will see which commands are executed by 'make'.

Then, if that works, I *think* I need to create a branch so that I can safely work on the re-structure. What do I type on the command line?

Most important command:
$ git help branch
Creating a new branch is not really necessary, but it's a clean way, especially for major changes, and it's cheap (and easy): $ git branch name_of_your_new_branch You'll have to checkout ("git help checkout") that new brach, that is to "change to this new branch":
$ git checkout name_of_your_new_branch You can also combine both steps:
$ git checkout -b name_of_your_new_branch

By the way, did it occur to anyone that having a help system that needs a programmer to change it rather limits the people who will help to... programmers - whereas what you really need to write help is authors ;). There's a huge barrier - still in front of me - before I can even begin to edit. I don't need to understand the inner workings - sure with enough effort I could, but what a waste of my time!

We used to have an INSTALL file, but it seems that it's gone. :-(

Bye Ulf

PS: Do you see the contradiction:

Ah, right, I can give you some examples... ;) [...]

vs.

... having a help system that needs a programmer ...

;-)

Beten heißt den Himmel melken wollen.
		-- Karlheinz Deschner

David (Friday, 10. December 2010)

There are two ways to work/start:

1) The standard way is using autotools (automake, autoconf, etc.)

2) IMHO the autotools are a) bloated and b) overkill for our project, so I created a Makefile that should "just work"; all you have to do is to type

$ make -f Makefile.GNU ... LINGUAS=en

I'm afraid neither approach "just works" (both complain cryptically).

Hmm, both worked for me. Using Makefile.GNU complains about missing dep files (xml/*/.deps.mk), but you can ignore these messages.

Which error messages did you get?

Over the past couple of weeks I've not been able to justify spending more time on the technology, when what I want to do is help with the documentation - and it looks as if it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. I'm no less busy than anyone else here ;).

Welcome to the club. ;-)

Bye, Ulf

Die Heiligenlegenden entlarvte Luther als Märchen. An den Bibellegenden
hielt er fest; am Teufelsglauben auch; am Hexenwahn auch; an der
Ketzervertilgung auch; am Antisemitismus auch; am Kriegsdienst, an der
Leibeigenschaft, den Fürsten. Man nennt es: Reformation.
		-- Karlheinz Deschner