Introduction
This discussion is connected to the gimp-docs-list.gnome.org mailing list which is provided by the GIMP developers and not related to gimpusers.com.
This is a read-only list on gimpusers.com so this discussion thread is read-only, too.
| Introduction | Michael Grosberg | 05 Feb 15:30 |
| Introduction | Marco Ciampa | 06 Feb 18:07 |
| Introduction | Michael Grosberg | 06 Feb 22:37 |
| Introduction | Julien Hardelin | 07 Feb 07:19 |
| Introduction | Marco Ciampa | 07 Feb 08:54 |
| Introduction | "Kolbj | 07 Feb 18:19 |
Introduction
Hello all,
Following a discussion on the main Gimp mailing list I'd like to offer my help in improving Gimp's Documentation. My initial impetus was just to add documentation on how to change the keyboard shortcuts to the supplied ps-rcmenu file, but on further examination of the online manual, I think I can be of some further use, and I'm offering my help in improving the English version of the online manual and making it more professional and helpful.
Some background info first: I'm working as a graphic designer / generalist
3d artist in a small hi tech company, whose product contains a development
platform with some 3d content elements. It has been my job for the last few
years to create the documentation and course material that would aid our
clients in using this platform.
As a result I have extensive experience both in image editing and in tech
writing. I also participate, just for fun, in an online web board frequented
by newcomers to graphics and by answering their questions I believe I have
some insight into what a newcomer to Gimp would find useful in a help file.
I'll gladly supply some examples of my work (personally, and preferably to to a team leader if such exists - I don't want to put company documents online), so you can judge for yourself.
Now, where I lack knowledge is in the actual editing and content management. I am familiar with source control in general but not with GIT and I'm not sure about the best way to edit those xml files. But that's for later.
So, to sum things up, I'm offering my help and would like to know how I can help(and whose incharge - that's always important).
regards, Michael Grosberg
Introduction
On Sat, Feb 05, 2011 at 05:30:54PM +0200, Michael Grosberg wrote:
Hello all,
Following a discussion on the main Gimp mailing list I'd like to offer my help in improving Gimp's Documentation.
[...]
welcome aboard! Every help is appreciated!
Feel free to ask.
my 10 cent: use Linux as the manual dev platform!
Introduction
On Sat, Feb 05, 2011 at 05:30:54PM +0200, Michael Grosberg wrote:
Hello all,
Following a discussion on the main Gimp mailing list I'd like to offer my help in improving Gimp's Documentation.
[...]
welcome aboard! Every help is appreciated!
Feel free to ask.
my 10 cent: use Linux as the manual dev platform!
Okay, let's begin with the questions: I have many.
First of all, how do things work in this project, in terms of process, decision-making, etc? My aim is to make the documentation better by changing things such as "how to be a gimp wizard" and other miscellaneous strange terms in the documentation, and make it easier for a user to find what they are looking for (wizardry, I suspect, is not among them). But obviously not all changes are well received by everyone, so what I most need to know, is who has the power to accept or reject changes? How do you review / discuss changes? Is the manual in other languages 100% identical to the English one and how does that affect my ability to change the English manual?
I think until I figure that out I'll restrict myself to learning the system, and cut my teeth on some low-hanging fruit such as finding instances of "The Gimp" and replacing them with "Gimp".
Now, to technical matters: Working with GIT and the XML.
I'm on Ubuntu 10.10, and have downloaded a copy of the GIT repository as described in the "help us" page. Now, the thing is, I'm no programmer. I'm familiar with version control - specifically Microsoft Team Foundation server (at work), but I've never really worked on code, just art resources. So I'm kinda lost when it comes to GIT. Is there a recommended front end / GUI to access it? Or do you do all your checkout and commits in the terminal? As an artist I'm much more GUI-oriented.
I browsed the repository and I see help pages are written in XML. Do you hand-code everything, or do you have some easier way to write pages in an editor? And is there documentation on how to write said XML or do I just read the existing pages and do my best to emulate that?
That's all for now, if you have anything specific you need done that would also be good.
Michael
Introduction
Welcome,
The GIMP-HELP-2 project is at present ticking over, probably waiting GIMP-2.8.
Your arrival is a good thing to wake the project up. especially as an English native speaker.
First of all, how do things work in this project, in terms of process, decision-making, etc? My aim is to make the documentation better by changing things such as "how to be a gimp wizard" and other miscellaneous strange terms in the documentation, and make it easier for a user to find what they
are looking for (wizardry, I suspect, is not among them). But obviously not all changes are well received by everyone, so what I most need to know, is who has the power to accept or reject changes? How do you review / discuss changes? Is the manual in other languages 100% identical to the English one and how does that affect my ability to change the English manual?
Roman is in charge of the project. He should have answered to your question normally, but he is very busy for the moment. Ulf is an important contributor, and knows XML, GIT... very well. And me, Julien, who is working on the project since the beginning, and had to get acquainted with SVN, GIT, XML, GETTEXT... These three persons are permanent contributors. Some other bring intermittent contribution.
I think until I figure that out I'll restrict myself to learning the system, and cut my teeth on some low-hanging fruit such as finding instances of "The Gimp" and replacing them with "Gimp".
It must be GIMP (GIMP in XML files).
Now, to technical matters: Working with GIT and the XML.
I'm on Ubuntu 10.10, and have downloaded a copy of the GIT repository as described in the "help us" page. Now, the thing is, I'm no programmer. I'm familiar with version control - specifically Microsoft Team Foundation server (at work), but I've never really worked on code, just art resources. So I'm kinda lost when it comes to GIT. Is there a recommended front end / GUI to access it? Or do you do all your checkout and commits in the terminal? As an artist I'm much more GUI-oriented.
GIT is difficult. You will find good tutorials on the WEB (http://www.spheredev.org/wiki/Git_for_the_lazy for instance). You don't have to know all about GIT to start. You easily understand that you can't push your fist files to the git repository directly. You can send them to me personnally, so that I can verify them.
I browsed the repository and I see help pages are written in XML. Do you hand-code everything, or do you have some easier way to write pages in an editor? And is there documentation on how to write said XML or do I just read the existing pages and do my best to emulate that?
Yes, we write documentation with a text editor (I use Kate). For new files, you will find templates in gimp-help-2/docs/templates.
Julien
Introduction
On Mon, Feb 07, 2011 at 08:19:45AM +0100, Julien Hardelin wrote: [...]
Now, to technical matters: Working with GIT and the XML.
I'm on Ubuntu 10.10, and have downloaded a copy of the GIT repository as described in the "help us" page. Now, the thing is, I'm no programmer. I'm familiar with version control - specifically Microsoft Team Foundation server (at work), but I've never really worked on code, just art resources. So I'm kinda lost when it comes to GIT. Is there a recommended front end / GUI to access it? Or do you do all your checkout and commits in the terminal? As an artist I'm much more GUI-oriented.
GIT is difficult. You will find good tutorials on the WEB (http://www.spheredev.org/wiki/Git_for_the_lazy for instance). You don't have to know all about GIT to start. You easily understand that you can't push your fist files to the git repository directly. You can send them to me personnally, so that I can verify them.
I browsed the repository and I see help pages are written in XML. Do you hand-code everything, or do you have some easier way to write pages in an editor? And is there documentation on how to write said XML or do I just read the existing pages and do my best to emulate that?
Yes, we write documentation with a text editor (I use Kate). For new files, you will find templates in gimp-help-2/docs/templates.
I'm sorry, it's not just a matter of xml and git.
You have to setup a build chain with different tecnologies. The good thing is that Ubuntu has already all the needed packages to do it right out of the box; you just have to know exactly which packages you need to install...the bad thing is that those packages used to be listed in the GIMP wiki that is down (seems forever) so I have to figure out what you need to install...
Then you can safely do some test thanks to the
make validate
command that could test your experiments before trying to send them to anybody or to the main git manual repository.
Then you can use any text editor but, a xml-docbook aware like emacs or jedit/eclipse could help you a lot...
Introduction
Den 07.02.2011 09:54, skreiv Marco Ciampa:
On Mon, Feb 07, 2011 at 08:19:45AM +0100, Julien Hardelin wrote: [...]
Now, to technical matters: Working with GIT and the XML.
I'm on Ubuntu 10.10, and have downloaded a copy of the GIT repository as described in the "help us" page. Now, the thing is, I'm no programmer. I'm familiar with version control - specifically Microsoft Team Foundation server (at work), but I've never really worked on code, just art resources. So I'm kinda lost when it comes to GIT. Is there a recommended front end / GUI to access it? Or do you do all your checkout and commits in the terminal? As an artist I'm much more GUI-oriented.
GIT is difficult. You will find good tutorials on the WEB (http://www.spheredev.org/wiki/Git_for_the_lazy for instance). You don't have to know all about GIT to start. You easily understand that you can't push your fist files to the git repository directly. You can send them to me personnally, so that I can verify them.
I browsed the repository and I see help pages are written in XML. Do you hand-code everything, or do you have some easier way to write pages in an editor? And is there documentation on how to write said XML or do I just read the existing pages and do my best to emulate that?
Yes, we write documentation with a text editor (I use Kate). For new files, you will find templates in gimp-help-2/docs/templates.
I'm sorry, it's not just a matter of xml and git.
You have to setup a build chain with different tecnologies. The good thing is that Ubuntu has already all the needed packages to do it right out of the box; you just have to know exactly which packages you need to install...the bad thing is that those packages used to be listed in the GIMP wiki that is down (seems forever) so I have to figure out what you need to install...
Then you can safely do some test thanks to the
make validate
command that could test your experiments before trying to send them to anybody or to the main git manual repository.
Then you can use any text editor but, a xml-docbook aware like emacs or jedit/eclipse could help you a lot...
Welcome, Michael.
A few additions: I have just added a few examples to the file src/menus/layer/offset.xml by using another file as a template to get the inserted code correct in accordance with the Dockbook/stylesheet scheme. That is all I have to do to edit the English GIMP files. (If I have made some mistakes in the coding, Ulf will hopefully correct it as usual :-)). In this case I just used Notepad++ as an editor.
To see the changes, use the command "make html" and the html files wil
be generated. Takes some time.
A faster way is to use the command "make scr/menus/layer/offset.draft".
(Of course you change the path to point on your file, replacing the
"xml" extension with "draft").
After validating the files the rest is git stuff. Julien is the born helper on this. Without him I never collaborated in this project.
Kolbjoern
