This is the second draft of the pre-release.
Copyright © 2000 Red Hat, Inc.
Copyright © 2000 Daniel Mueth
Copyright © 2000 Alexander Kirillov
Copyright © 2002 Eric Baudais
Copyright © 2002 Eugene O'Connor
Copyright © 2002 John Fleck
Copyright © 2003 John Fleck
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. You can find a copy of the GFDL at this link or in the file COPYING-DOCS distributed with this manual.
This manual is part of a collection of GNOME manuals distributed under the GFDL. If you want to distribute this manual separately from the collection, you can do so by adding a copy of the license to the manual, as described in section 6 of the license.
Many of the names used by companies to distinguish their products and services are claimed as trademarks. Where those names appear in any GNOME documentation, and the members of the GNOME Documentation Project are made aware of those trademarks, then the names are in capital letters or initial capital letters.
DOCUMENT AND MODIFIED VERSIONS OF THE DOCUMENT ARE PROVIDED UNDER THE TERMS OF THE GNU FREE DOCUMENTATION LICENSE WITH THE FURTHER UNDERSTANDING THAT:
DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES THAT THE DOCUMENT OR MODIFIED VERSION OF THE DOCUMENT IS FREE OF DEFECTS MERCHANTABLE, FIT FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGING. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY, ACCURACY, AND PERFORMANCE OF THE DOCUMENT OR MODIFIED VERSION OF THE DOCUMENT IS WITH YOU. SHOULD ANY DOCUMENT OR MODIFIED VERSION PROVE DEFECTIVE IN ANY RESPECT, YOU (NOT THE INITIAL WRITER, AUTHOR OR ANY CONTRIBUTOR) ASSUME THE COST OF ANY NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY CONSTITUTES AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THIS LICENSE. NO USE OF ANY DOCUMENT OR MODIFIED VERSION OF THE DOCUMENT IS AUTHORIZED HEREUNDER EXCEPT UNDER THIS DISCLAIMER; AND
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Feedback
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| Revision History | |
|---|---|
| Revision GNOME Handbook V1.0.2 | June 2002 |
|
GNOME Documentation Project | |
| Revision GNOME Handbook V0.99 | 04.15.2002 |
|
GNOME Documentation Project | |
Table of Contents
The GNOME Documentation Project (GDP) aims to provide GNOME and GNOME applications with a complete, intuitive, and clear documentation system. At the center of the GDP is Yelp, which presents a unified interface to GNOME-specific documentation as well as other Linux documentation such as man pages and texinfo documents. The GNOME Help System provides a comprehensive view of documentation on a machine by dynamically assembling the documentation of GNOME applications and components which are installed. The GDP is responsible for writing numerous GNOME-related documents for users. User documentation include the GNOME User's Guide, the GNOME Release Notes, and GNOME application documentation. Most GNOME applications have their own manual in addition to context sensitive help.
Documenting GNOME and all the numerous GNOME applications is a very large project. The GDP is always looking for people to help write, update, and edit documentation. If you are interested in joining the GDP team, you should join the gnome-doc-list mailing list . Read Section , “Getting Started Writing GNOME Documentation”, for help selecting a project to work on. Feel free to introduce yourself on the gnome-doc-list mailing list and indicate which project you intend to work on, or else ask for suggestions of important documents which need work done. You may also want to join the #docs IRC channel on irc.gnome.org to meet other GDP members and discuss any questions you may have. For a list of GDP projects and members, see the GDP Website.
GNOME developers, packagers, and translators may not be writing GNOME documentation but will want to understand how the GNOME documentation system works and will need to collaborate with GDP members. This document should help to outline the structure of how the GNOME documentation system works. Developers who do not write the documentation for their applications are encouraged to find a GDP member to write the documentation. This is best done by sending an email to the gnome-doc-list mailing list describing the application, where it can be downloaded from, and that the developer(s) would like a GDP member to write documentation for the application. The #docs IRC channel on irc.gnome.org is another option for contacting GDP members.
This Handbook uses the following notation:
| /usr/bin | Directory |
| foo.sgml | Filename |
| command | Command or text that would be typed. |
| replaceable | "Variable" text that can be replaced. |
| Program or Doc Code | Program or document code |
This Handbook is a guide for both writing user documentation for GNOME components and applications and for properly binding and packaging documentation into GNOME applications.
This Handbook is not a guide for writing developer documentation. If you can read C and wish to write developer documentation take a look at GTK+ Reference Documentation Project.
This Handbook, like all GNOME documentation, was written in DocBook(XML) and is available in several formats including XML, HTML, PostScript, and PDF. For the latest version, see Getting The GNOME Handbook of Writing Software Documentation . Alternately, one may download it anonymously from GNOME CVS under gnome-docu/gdp.