Re: [documancer] Re: [documancer-users] a few bugs?

Hi,

arnd.baecker-S0/[email protected] wrote:
>   The documancer files were put in
>     ${HOME}/PYTHON_TST/lib/documancer
>   where I would have expected them to be in
>     ${HOME}/PYTHON_TST/lib/python2.3/site-packages/documancer

Sorry, why? Documancer is *not* a Python package, it's an application, 
so why install it into the place where Python libraries are 
installed? Also, you can currently run single Documancer installation 
using both 2.2 and 2.3 interpreter, but you'd have to have two 
installations 

>   (Actually, a setup.py file might be nice).

While setup.py may be useful for installing multi-platform Python 
packages, I don't find it terribly useful for installation of 
applications. In fact I consider autoconf's checks much more useful 
-- is there some way to seemlessly integrate autoconf and setup.py? 
Also, note that Documancer is mixed-language code (C and Python).

> - Books manager:
>   starting afresh (i.e. no books added yet)
>   I first entered a Book title, selected Html
>   but did not get the URL field.
>   Only then I realized that I have to press "New" first
>   and only then one can add the book.
>   Ok, this is user stupidity ;-), but maybe one should either
>     a) disable the entry fields first
>     b) or allow for adding a book
>       by just typing the information
>       and accept this by pressing
>       an "Add" button.
>
>   Also by pressing "New" a "book's name"
>   entry box opens even though there
>   is entry field for this
>   (Named "Book title" vs. "book's name").
>   To summarize: I think it would be more intuitive
>   to go for variant b).

I agree completely, but it will take a little more time to do this.

> - after adding the first book and returning from the Books manager
>   the index page of this document is not shown.
>   (One has to press "Return to homepage" explicitly).

Thanks, will fix.

> - when doing a search the first hit could be shown
>   automatically (maybe as option)

Done now. I'll make it an option if somebody complains about it;)

>   (also the width of "Score" and "Document" is not
>    well adapted and changing the width of the Search/Bookmarks
>    part the widths of "Score"/"Documents" is not changed
> accordingly) 

What do you mean? Score column has fixed width here and the Document 
one has width of the widest page title, is there something wrong with 
that or does it behave differently for you?

> - clicking on a result after a search opens
>   the page of that document, but does not jump to
>   the position of the first hit in that document

Fixed as well.

> - after a search: buttons (and key shortcuts)
>   to move to the next/previous hit in the document

Will do shortly, it's been planned, but I had to fix some problems 
with the highlighter first (now done).

> - searches across several books would be useful as well
>   (e.g. with a tick-list to specify which
>    books should be included in the search)

Yes. I want it to be even better: I want it to let you define 
collections of books and bind them to specific directories or source 
files on your disk, so that you can invoke Documancer from text 
editor and it will know which books are relevant to the file you're 
editing.

> - it would be nice if updating/generating an index is
>   done in a separate thread (+ a busy indicator maybe ...).
>   (Then one could at least continue browsing in the meantime ...)

Planned (see the TODO file in CVS). I also want it to automatically 
detect that the content changed and reindex it.

> - When clicking on a link to a ps or pdf document
>   there is always a kind of download window,
>   titled wxmozilla. It contains a list of all the
>   previous .ps/.pdf.
>   Is there a way to (optionally)
>   prevent this window from showing up at all?

I don't know. But I'm [almost] sure it can't be done on wxMozilla 
level.

>   (even though it might be sometimes nice as it allows to inspect
>    the settings for wxmozilla with about:config)

This inspired me to add "Configure Mozilla" menu item that opens 
about:config, but it doesn't work well (read-only, doesn't workd & 
even crashes when you try to edit the prefs).

> - "About": you could include a link to the web-page
>   (so interested users can get straight to all further information,
>    e.g. mailing list, updates etc. ...)

It's been there, but well-hidden, now fixed.

> Wish-List points:
> - Support for a tree view of Table of Contents for the books
>   a la wxHtmlHelper, like e.g. for the wxpython doku.

Definitely planned (and not only for .hhp, but for gtk-doc and others 
as well), but I didn't have time to do it yet.

>   ((Actually, I think that will be the last open point
>   to make me switch from helpviewer.py to documancer ;-))

Nice to hear :)

> Some meta stuff (not thought to an end ;-):
> - I am thinking of using documancer as _the_ documentation
>   center for our course on computational physics next summer term.
>   So there will be several users accessing the same base of
> documents (python documentation, dive-into-python tutorial, Numeric
> manual, scipy documentation, wxPython manual, ...).
>   Therefore it would be nice to have the search indices
>   for these documents just generated once (by "root")
>   so that the users to not have to create and store
>   their own copy of this.

Yes... It opens some problems, though:
* How do you edit global vs. root-user-only books?
* Provided Documancer can update index if it detects its out of date 
(it will support it, eventually), how can it update shared books if 
it is not run as root?

> - In addition to html files there might be also pdf files.
>   Would it be possible to include these into the search
>   when they are referenced from a html file?

Not easily -- I can't index PDF files currently, I can only display 
them if Acrobat Reader is installed, I can't highlight search results 
in them, have bookmarks, i.e. they cannot be first class citizens in 
Documancer yet. But I'd like to be able to fully use them at some 
point (by means of xpdf or something similar).

> - Thinking of having a documancer session open all the time
>   it would be nice if there is a way to
>   direct queries from an interactive (I)python session
>   (or pycrust, or emacs, or ...)
>   to documancer.

Also planned... But the TODO with my plans is way too big, so I could 
definitely use some help, as usual ;)

Regards,
Vaclav

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