[Qgis-developer] Re: [Qgis-community-team] Context sensitive help id generator

[Gary Sherman]

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 2:33 AM, Milena Nowotarska <do.milenki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Gary, All,
>
> Thank you for the script..
> what about a little revolution in context help management though?
>
> As a girl (and girls doesn't like numbers) I was thinking about renaming
> context help files to the name of a particular .ui file it is connected to.
> That would require changes in code calling this help file, byt maybe it is
> worth it.
>
> Having such names it would be easier to manage context help and to say which
> files are missing at first glance in both directories. No need to create a
> database what belongs where ;)

I agree it would be easier, however it creates another data management
problem. The oriinal idea behind using a number was to make it unique
for all time. Using the class name as the seed is just a way to get
that number. If we switch to file names or class names as Jurgen
suggests, it means that developers will need to be aware of the
context help system when refactoring. If a class gets renamed, the
help file would be orphaned. The developer would have to rename all
the help files for the class (each translation) in order for the help
system to work. Using a unique ID eliminates that burden.

If the developers want to add that to their workflow than we can
change the methodology. In my experience however, this will result in
disconnects and require constant checking of each dialog to make sure
the help is still functional.

There may be other options---perhaps this discussion will start some
wheels spinning in the developer's brains :)

>
> Having a human-like name of the context help files might encourage the
> translators to improve help files when they find something unclear. They
> will just know at once which dialog should be opened to check if the help is
> still validate - we are changing the GUI frequently after all.

If numbers are retained, a simple text file with cross-reference could
be maintained. This would require infrequent updating, only when a new
dialog is added and would not need to be changed during refactoring.

-gary
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Gary Sherman
Chair, QGIS Project Steering Committee
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