ubuntu-manual team mailing list archive

[Luke-Jennings <ubuntujenkins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 2010-06-20 at 21:17 +0100, Marc Stewart wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> I was reading about Jason Cook's updater script at OMG! Ubuntu!
> ( http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/06/automatic-ubuntu-manual-updater.html ) and the comments regarding just using a PPA instead the other day. In the absence of a PPA, it's a useful script that covers the localisation issue well, but I agree that a PPA would be better, and think that a menu item launcher would be a useful addition too.
> 
> So yesterday I set about creating a system of packages that would
> provide an appropriately localised manual, automatic updates for both
> developers and end-users, and a launcher for the menu. For those
> impatient to test the prototype, the results can be found in my PPA
> ( ppa:marc.stewart/ubuntu-manual ;
> https://launchpad.net/~marc.stewart/+archive/ubuntu-manual ), with
> ubuntu-manual-en as the package of main interest.
> 
> ubuntu-manual-pdf-en is just the English version of the manual as a PDF,
> installed to the /usr/share/ubuntu-manual directory. Translations would
> follow the same naming pattern (ubuntu-manual-pdf-<LANGUAGE-CODE>) and
> be installed to the same folder. The current version is 10.04.1.788,
> indicating revision 788 of the first edition of Getting Started with
> Ubuntu 10.04.
> 
> ubuntu-manual-gnome-launcher provides a multilingual .desktop file that
> is installed in the Applications > Accessories menu, which runs a tiny
> Python script that looks up the user's locale and then tries to open the
> correct language version of the manual. This allows several language
> versions to be installed on the same computer, with just a single menu
> entry able to open whichever is the appropriate manual, based on the
> current user's locale setting.
> 
> ubuntu-manual-en is almost a pure meta-package, in that it lists the two
> previous packages as requirements. The only file it provides is a
> translation (.mo) file that links the launcher script to the correct
> version of the manual. This is the package that English-reading users
> would actually install. Other languages would have their own
> ubuntu-manual-<LANGUAGE-CODE> packages.
> 
> Dividing over 3 packages may seem like a complication, and for the
> initial installation, it is—slightly. But the benefit is that it greatly
> simplifies updates (which occur more often), since a change to the
> launcher, such as adding an additional language (bytes), would not
> result in re-downloading an unchanged version of the manual (megabytes),
> and it allows all the different language versions to share the same
> multilingual launcher package.
> 
> These would all be placed in the main PPA. A second, development PPA
> could then be used to provide alternative, daily-build versions of
> ubuntu-manual-pdf-<LANG>. Because their version number, e.g. 10.04.2.81,
> would be higher than the Release version, contributors who also add the
> development PPA would receive the most current version of the manual.
> When a new release is made, it's a simple matter of copying that package
> across to the main PPA, triggering an update for normal readers of the
> manual.
> 
> Major updates (10.10.x.y) could be handled in the same way, without
> having to create an entirely new package. Keeping those major updates
> from the Lucid series (i.e. Maverick only) would allow users sticking
> with the LTS to retain the relevant manual.
> 
> The daily builds can be generated automatically once a recipe has been
> associated with the Bazaar development branch, as discussed in this
> video: http://blip.tv/file/3738068 . I haven't gotten my head round the
> details yet, but the feature is available on the Edge version of
> Launchpad, if anyone else feels like looking at that too. And until
> then, Jason's script will do the job.
The daily builds could not be handled in launchpad as you would need
launchpad to build each of the languages pdf. Unfortunately due to the
custom nature of some langauges we use some packages that I made myself
and therefore are not in the launchpad builders. I use bzr builder when
I want to do daily builds for quickshot, I would think that some form of
recipe for that could be worked out to help with the daily packages.
> 
> If this scheme meets with approval and I've gotten all the details
> right, the packages can be copied from my PPA. So tell me:
> Is this a good idea?
Yep something that has been on my to do list.
> Have I explained it all sufficiently?
> Is Applications > Accessories the best location for the launcher?
> Have I made any packaging errors?
In my opinion yes.
> Does anyone already know how to create build recipes for Launchpad?
> Anything else?
See above :)
> Marc
> 
> P.S. Great work, everyone!
Thanks for your work as well. If you want to discuss some of this
further feel free to grab me on irc I am ubuntujenkins on freenode and
out channel is #ubuntu-manual


Luke 
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