ubuntu-tour team mailing list archive

[Anthony Stewart <madnessred@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, those of you who have recently checked launchpad may have notices I
have resurrected the "new-lang-system" branch.

This branch is not just a new language system but it is also a new tour
model. All of this was discussed and agreed upon in the last meeting.

Firstly the left-hand menu is going, instead it is being replaced by a
breadcrumb style bar, the one from the Ubuntu Software Centre, as well as a
nicer layout of the tours.
The home-page will still show 6 categories, can we decide what these should
be? We need 5 categories and a miscellaneous one for tours that don't really
fit anywhere else.
Currently there is no category to cover configuration/customisation,
however, there are 2 dedicated to the internet. A slightly better range is
in the new branch but it needs someone so sort it out.
Next once you have selected a category, you are taken to a list of tours. I
would like for there to be a database online at ubuntutour.org or elsewhere
so that tours can be rated, so the most useful ones come to the top.
Also we have some pretty animations. The significance here is that tours are
now just elements of text which get loaded into the program, rather than
entire pages in their own right.

Secondly the ideology of the tours is being changed. At the moment the tours
are guides to applications, which is more what yelp is meant to do. The idea
of the tour is to show users how to do common tasks. When writing a tour
please consider that a friend has asked you how to do x in Ubuntu. You are
then writing a tour to tell him, how he does x.
Eg, he may ask "How do I set up my email account". This is then the title of
the tour. And the tour explains how to do this. This is preferable to the
user having to read all about his email client.
The content we have at the moment is very good, we just need a friendlier
way of displaying it.

Finally the way translations work is being changed, again, sorry. I am
hoping to migrate to a gettext based translations system. If anyone knowns
gettext well please speak up as I could do with a bit of help with it. If
not we can try and see if OMG!Ubuntu! will put up an article, in which was
can ask for someone.
The advantage of gettext is that it will help keep translations up-to-date
and will prevent some languages being left behind.
At the moment, if someone changes the english tour, the translations won't
be updated until someone notices. With launchpad, the translations needed
will be visible so you can always see what needs translating. Furthermore
the entire won't need updating, only the changed sentences or phrases will
need updating.

This will all take time to do. Hence why I have branched it. Writers,
translators, please keep writing on the main branch, tours will then be
migrated later. Those who have written tours, please see if you can, where
possible adapt them to a question-answer style approach.
Programmers, don't bother committing code to the main branch as only the
tours from that will be kept, any changes made after the fork, revision
470, to anything outside the tours folder will be lost.

Does anyone have the minutes/irc log for the last meeting?

Regards

Anthony

ps, if you have a bit of free time, sudo apt-get install gource and have a
look at how Ubuntu Tour has developed.
pps, sorry for any typos or badly worded phrases, its half 4 here.