An idea about Online Help redirection

l10n
#1

Hi,

I have an idea for the current online help redirection for locales
other than the ones in the current help
site:https://help.libreoffice.org/Main_Page

The current situation for the users(except the ones in helpwiki) makes
no sense, as it redirects directly to English content, and it does not
help to you, as you are probably not an English speaking person.

I am usimg LibreOffice in Turkish and this page makes no sense for me:
https://help.libreoffice.org/swriter/.uno:HelpIndex?Language=tr&System=UNIX&Version=3.6#bm_id3149178

Do you see any usefull information to get help? Or icon recognizing
for kids? Makes any sense for you, if you are a non-english spreaker?
(Also i dont think this welcome page helps to English speakers too; it
will be better that it has only says, welcome to our help content,
please use the search bar or here is a simple navigation tree for
you--which should be the Component and Component main index in embed
help-- What is help?)

Most locales have help packages, and lots of users are not aware to
get them. Common behaviour is to download only installer, also there
are tons of download sites which provide only the multilanguage
installer, not the helppack.

When you click to LibreOffice Help or F1, a dialog might appear and
ask the user to install the help content:

#2

Hi :slight_smile:
I don't know how to say it without upsetting people because it even upsets me and i haven't done any of the immense amount of work you are all doing.  So, i'm just going to say it.  I was quite shocked to see the high emphasis placed on translating the in-built help.  To me it's the UI (menus and splash screens and stuff) that really scores points.  That and the published guides.

Who is updating the in-built help, the one that is being used as a base for translating into all the different languages?  I really hope it's not the English one!

None of the English Documentation Team have been working on it!  From the Users List it seems the in-built help is useful but it is seriously out-dated and it is getting worse as LibreOffice keeps developing so fast.  I gather there have been a couple of people fighting hard to try to keep the in-built help working but there are a lot of factors working against them.

The published guides are much, MUCH better.  Even though there have only been 2 or 3 people (on average) in the English Docs Team for the last 2-3 years they have still managed to produce an almost full set of guides for every branch.  That is nearly 2 full sets per year!!  Compare to MS's 1 full set in 3-5 years!

Apparently the in-built help is a nightmare of XML coding to work with.  Good documenters rarely have the skills to work with Xml and the sight of coding seems to cause narcolepsy or a strong desire to run away.  Their focus should be on writing to be understood by normal users, not on hacking code.

Apparently Sun upgraded the in-built help system from something that documenters could just about understand to the current XML-nightmare and did so directly against the advice of various members of the community.  So, that begs the questions;
1.  Can we revert back to the previous system, or move to a new one that hides the coding away from the documenters and translators? 
2.  Can we do that without losing any of the translated strings?

In-built documentation is extremely valuable to users even when it's out of date but when it seriously misinforms or gives people instructions that do not work then it becomes a problem.  LibreOffice's in-built help is a problem.

On the other hand the published guides are so good that people are paying money to buy printed versions from Lulu!!  Buying them even though it's so easy to find free downloads of them.  It's not much money, not enough to do anything particularly useful, but it's better than nothing.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: