seul-dev-help

Introduction

In order to attain the goals of the SEUL project a help system is needed which can quickly provide detailed, easy to understand help and tutorials. The seul-dev-help group has been formed to pursue these ends.

Project Goals

Provide a uniform mechanism for viewing all help files.
Produce documents which may be understood and used by a computer novice.
Provide an easy method of adding new document types to the help viewer.
Produce SEUL specific help.
Provide Interface for programs to use help.

Current Status

At the current time the following have been produced for the SEUL help system.

A generic help viewer frame which controls document loading and navigation.
"Loadable Display Modules" for viewing html, (limited)sdoc, man and text formats within the viewer frame.
A "Contents" program for browsing help files.
A command line program for accessing help.
A DLL interface for accessing help from another program.
A search interface for the help viewer.

Features in the Works

The main focus for release v0.4 will be stability and component improvements. Effort will be expended in getting documentation efforts under way.

Stability and correctness efforts.
An "Index" program to browse help files in an alphabetical list.
An info page display module.
Simplified and integrated documentation.
Task documentation which describes steps through tasks.
Linking more development documents with web page.
SEUL-specific instalation (based on SEUL directory structure).
Compiled binary distributions.
DEB and/or RPMs for binary distributions.

Getting xhelp

There are two methods of getting xhelp:

Most recent development version from cvs.
Most recent release version (binaries):
Download and instalation instructions are available for the following packages:
- xhelp v0.3 software.

Associated installs:

The following additional setups and installs should be done for a more complete system:

xhelp components

There are several completed and many incomplete components to the xhelp system. The components expected in various releases are listed here. The actual release dates depend on how many people are working on the release and upon the addition and removal of components.

Known Bugs

Any bugs which are known are reported here. If you have found a bug which is not mentioned here please either post it to seul-dev-help or mail Ken Duck at twoducks@globalserve.net

If there are features which you feel should be implemented, feel free to report these as well, as all feedback is appreciated.

Joining seul-dev-help

There is much need for coders, documenters, and ideas within the help group. See the SEUL mailing list archive for information on how to join. Anyone and everyone is welcome.

For a description of current/proposed seul-dev-help projects see the list of projects.

Development Information

The development information pages provide information for those who work on the project, either in coding or in documentation. Developpers of applications will be interested in the documentation page as it discusses formats for various kinds of documents which will be used in the help system.