PuffinPlot issue tracker

Bug: a88/4a299

ID : 4a2990cd-ef0a-498a-8eb6-ec14c2f5aea4
Short name : a88/4a299
Status : fixed
Severity : minor
Assigned :
Reporter : Pontus Lurcock <pont@ou094023>
Creator : Pontus Lurcock <pont@ou094023>
Created : Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:02:58 +0000
Target : 1.4
Summary : Add help [27]

Comment: --------- Comment ---------
ID: 29f28150-46da-4950-bf4e-a4ee97277e67
Short name: a88/4a299/29f
From: Pontus Lurcock <pont@ou094023>
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:02:58 +0000

(no content)

Comment: --------- Comment ---------
ID: 8a35dbfe-940b-495f-a9cb-280ebced3c0e
Short name: a88/4a299/8a3
From: Pontus Lurcock <pont@talvi.net>
Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:31:06 +0000

Have added a draft manual file to the repo to serve as an occasional
brain-dump for things that need to be in the documentation.

Comment: --------- Comment ---------
ID: 2797cb14-6ac3-4023-a0cf-bf310f101b4b
Short name: a88/4a299/279
From: Pontus Lurcock <pont@talvi.net>
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:03:31 +0000

Would JavaHelp be the right thing to use for displaying the
documentation? Could just do it in HTML and put it online, but users
may want to read it offline.

Comment: --------- Comment ---------
ID: 7b2c7dd5-744a-4b42-b435-3faa46083e83
Short name: a88/4a299/7b2
From: Pontus Lurcock <pont@talvi.net>
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:18:59 +0000

JavaHelp looks a little heavyweight -- even the jhbasic jar is ~400kB,
around twice the size of PuffinPlot! What about writing docs in
AsciiDoc or similar, putting HTML version online, and providing
HTML and PDF versions for download?

Comment: --------- Comment ---------
ID: 864162e8-7988-4375-9780-1aad9401058d
Short name: a88/4a299/864
From: Pontus Lurcock <pont@talvi.net>
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:33:32 +0000

AsciiDoc looks promising actually -- can generate chunked HTML via
DocBook. Processing will obviously be a bit heavyweight since it needs
a DocBook toolchain, but output shouldn't be too big.

Comment: --------- Comment ---------
ID: 523096a6-1b4a-40e5-9b2e-fb49c69c853d
Short name: a88/4a299/523
From: Pontus Lurcock <pont@talvi.net>
Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:59:55 +0000

With Batik now bundled, size is less of a concern for JavaHelp,
and there is a full HTML manual produced using htlatex. The only 
remaining thing is the work of actually integrating the JavaHelp
classes, producing the JavaHelp files from the HTML, bundling
them into the jar, and persuading JavaHelp to load them. JavaHelp
seems to be fairly old, seldom used, and with limited documentation,
so I'd estimate this at maybe 8-16 hours of work.

Comment: --------- Comment ---------
ID: d401fb8e-0830-4475-9c8e-e2936963d2df
Short name: a88/4a299/d40
From: Pontus Lurcock <pont@talvi.net>
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2016 17:01:36 +0000

JavaHelp appears to be dead -- last release in 2007, last commit in
2011, mailing lists dead for years. The possible replacement, Oracle
Help, has rather murky licensing terms which seem unlikely to be GPL
compatible. In any case, with an extensive HTML and PDF manual now
provided both for download and online reading, adding an extra built-in
manual seems like a poor use of time. I'm closing this as "fixed" on
the basis of the existing manuals and in-application tooltips.