tdeaddons/doc/tutorials/docprimer/index.docbook

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.2-Based Variant V1.1//EN" "dtd/kdex.dtd" [
  <!ENTITY kde-authors '<personname><surname>The &kde; Documentation Team</surname></personname>'>
  <!ENTITY meinproc "<command>meinproc</command>">
  <!ENTITY checkxml "<command>checkXML</command>">
  <!ENTITY svn "<application>Subversion</application>">
  <!ENTITY % addindex "IGNORE">
  <!ENTITY % English "INCLUDE"><!-- change language only here -->
]>

<book lang="&language;">

<bookinfo>
<title>The &tde; Documentation Primer</title>

<authorgroup>
<author>&kde-authors;</author>
<author>
<firstname>Carlos</firstname><surname>Woelz</surname>
</author>
<author>&tde-authors;</author>
</authorgroup>

<copyright>
<year>2004</year>
<holder>The KDE Documentation Team</holder>
</copyright>
<copyright>
<year>2004</year>
<holder>Carlos Woelz</holder>
</copyright>
<copyright>
<year>&tde-copyright-date;</year>
<holder>&tde-team;</holder>
</copyright>

<legalnotice>&FDLNotice;</legalnotice>

<date>&tde-release-date;</date>
<releaseinfo>&tde-release-version;</releaseinfo>

<abstract>
<para>
This document provides information to start writing documentation for &tde;.
Please report any errors or omissions to
<email>trinity-devel@lists.pearsoncomputing.net</email>.
</para>
</abstract>

<keywordset>
<keyword>TDE</keyword>
<keyword>Writing</keyword>
<keyword>Documentation</keyword>
</keywordset>

</bookinfo>

<chapter id="intro">
<title>Introduction</title>

<para>
The objective of this guide is to present all information required to make the
experience of writing &tde; documentation as easy as possible. 
The next chapter gives some information about what skills you'll need for the task.
It is important to note that this guide is a joint effort of the &tde;
English Documentation Team and the &tde; Quality Team. You can ask for support
from both teams at any time.</para>

<para>The <emphasis>&tde; English Documentation Team</emphasis> exists to
provide end-user documentation for the whole of &tde;. It's a big task, but an
important one. Although &tde; aims to be easy to use, not everything is obvious
without some help, and, in a project this big, even an experienced user
can't know every corner of &tde;.</para>
<para>The team is made up of people doing several different tasks:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Writing documentation for individual applications</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>Writing wider documentation for the whole of &tde; (like
the User Guide, or this document).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>Proofreading and/or updating documentation to ensure
that it is correct and up-to-date.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
Contributors to all of these areas are always welcome. You can
choose the area you would like to contribute to, based on your skills
and what you enjoy doing. If you need any help with documentation issues,
do not hesitate to ask at the &tde; Documentation mailing list,
<email>kde-doc-english@kde.org</email>, or on <acronym>IRC</acronym> in the channel #kde-docs on
<systemitem class="domainname">irc.freenode.net</systemitem>.</para>


<para>
The <emphasis>&tde; Quality Team</emphasis> provides support for
new contributors, and to coordinates the efforts of the volunteers.
The <ulink url="http://quality.kde.org">&tde; Quality Team Website</ulink>
provides guides to help you with some general development tasks,
such as getting the sources,
<ulink url="http://quality.kde.org/develop/cvsguide/">Building
&tde; From Source Step By Step</ulink>, and
<ulink url="http://quality.kde.org/develop/cvsguide/managestep.php">
Working with Subversion</ulink>, &etc;. If these guides are not sufficient, and you
are having problems with &tde; development, we provide support for new contributors
at the &tde; Quality mailing list, <email>kde-quality@kde.org</email>, or on IRC
in the channel #kde-quality on
<filename class="directory">irc.freenode.net</filename>.
</para>

</chapter>


<chapter id="getting-started">
<title>Getting Started</title>

<para>If you got this far reading this document, you're probably interested in
helping with &tde; documentation. If so, welcome aboard! We're always
happy to have new contributors, and whatever your skills, you can help
make &tde; even better.
<!-- Where to find us - mailing list, IRC, i18n.kde.org/doc --></para>


<sect1 id="requirements">
<title>Things You'll Need</title>

<para>To write documentation, there are only three things that are absolutely
necessary: some English knowledge, knowing what you want to document, and
access to a relatively recent version of the application you want to
document.</para>

<note><para>Notice that the list of requirements does
<emphasis>not</emphasis> contain a requirement that you learn DocBook,
or any of the other tools we use. We're very happy to receive
documentation written in plain text. We would much rather have the
content and have to add formatting than have no content at all.</para>
</note>

<sect2 id="requirements-english">
<title>English Knowledge</title>

<para>All &tde; documentation is originally written in English, so you
have to be able to write English to a reasonable level. That said, you
<emphasis>don't</emphasis> need to be a native speaker, and you don't
need to write word-perfect English. There are native English-speaking
proofreaders on the documentation team, and we would much rather have
<emphasis>some</emphasis> documentation that needs a little tweaking,
than no documentation at all. If you don't feel comfortable writing in
English, you might like to contribute to one of the &tde; translation
teams. You can find more information about translation on <ulink
url="http://i18n.kde.org">http://i18n.kde.org</ulink>.</para>

<para>If you're a fluent English speaker with an eye for detail, you
might be interested in joining the proofreading
team. Just drop an email to <email>kde-doc-english@kde.org</email> if
you'd like to help the proofreaders.</para>
<!-- What about moving this to the other task section in the end? -->


</sect2>
<sect2 id="requirements-what-to-write">
<title>Deciding What to Write About</title>
<para>&tde; is a very large project, with many different parts and
programs. Because of this, it can be hard to know where to start if you
want to contribute. There are a few rules of thumb that can help you
decide what to write about:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Find a topic that you'll enjoy writing about; It will
increase your motivation and help you to produce better documentation.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>Write about an application you know well. You'll be able
to spend more time on writing and less time trying to work out how the
application works. On the other hand, documenting an application can be
a good way to learn about how it works, especially if you like a challenge!</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>

<para>
If you are looking for an application to document, or just checking the status
of the application you want to work with, the
<ulink url="http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=KDE+Quality+Team">
&tde; Quality Team Wiki</ulink> contains lists of applications, organized
by modules, and their general status, including documentation status, and who
is working on it. Not all modules and applications are included or up to date,
but it is certainly worth checking.</para>

<para>If you start documenting one of the listed applications, please add your
name to the wiki pages as well. But If you just can't find an application to
work with, write to <email>kde-doc-english@kde.org</email> and ask for
suggestions. There's always something available to do, but there's no obligation
to work on a particular application. Also, contributing to a document doesn't
force you into keeping that document up-to-date (although if you can do that,
it's very welcome!).
</para>

<para>Another place to check is the &tde; bug list at <ulink
url="http://bugs.kde.org">http://bugs.kde.org</ulink>.  This is usually
more detailed than the wiki, and provides a place to list specific small
changes that are needed to documents.  These are often nice small jobs
to get you started contributing.  A set of quick links to ready made
queries are available from the Documentation Project's <ulink
url="http://i18n.kde.org/doc/current.php">
http://i18n.kde.org/doc/current.php</ulink> page.</para>

<para>It is also helpful to the team to file more bugs like these
above.  You will need a bugzilla account, and a recent copy of &tde;.
Simply open an application, choose
<menuchoice><guimenu>Help</guimenu><guimenuitem><replaceable>appname</replaceable>
Handbook</guimenuitem></menuchoice>.  Then just read through the document,
following along in the application.  &tde; applications are a moving
target to document, and sometimes the documentation has not yet caught
up with a change to the interface or behavior of an application.  Feel
free to file bugs for any of these issues you find, in order of urgency:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Inaccurate information about how an application
works</para><para>For instance, if you previously needed to save
changes to a file before they take effect in the &GUI;, and this now
happens automatically, text referring to manual saving should be
removed, or it will confuse readers.</para>
<!-- This example is terrible, can someone find a better one? -->
</listitem>
<listitem><para>GUI options or menu items (or sometimes, entire
dialogs)</para><para>This often happens in configuration dialogs, when
new items are added, a new grouping of existing options may be
created.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>New Features that are available and are not yet
documented.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="requirements-access">
<title>Access to a Recent Version</title>

<para>To make sure that the documentation you write is up-to-date,
you'll need to run a recent version of the application you are working with.
This normally means a recent beta version, a version of your application
compiled from sources or a version of &tde; compiled from sources in the &svn;
repository. If you think that compiling from sources is too burdensome, and you
cannot get some recent beta packages, there are still some interesting
possibilities to work around this requirement:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
Write about a stable application: there are many apps with a stable interface 
which are still lacking good documentation. In this case, the last stable version
provided by your distribution will be sufficient to write about it, no
compiling required.
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>
Using a remote desktop connection to preview the development version is
an ideal solution to this problem. The FreeNX terminal server technology
enables decent desktop performance even with dial up Internet
connections. We are planning to offer this service to &tde; documenters, but
the infrastructure is not yet in place (as of May
2005). You may ask the <email>kde-quality@kde.org</email> mailing list
about it, if you think this is the way to go. 
<!-- Also, Kurt's NX stuff will hopefully make this unnecessary Real -->
<!-- Soon Now. Once that happens, write about it here -->
</para></listitem>

</itemizedlist>

<para>If you want to try out building &tde; from sources, the &tde; Quality
website provides
<ulink url="http://quality.kde.org/develop/cvsguide/buildstep.php">a detailed,
step by step building guide</ulink>. You can find even more information at the
<ulink url="http://developer.kde.org/build">&tde; Developers Website</ulink>.
If you face any problems in the
compiling process you can't solve by reading the building guide, don't hesitate
to as for help on <email>kde-quality@kde.org</email>.</para>
</sect2>

</sect1>

</chapter>

<chapter id="guidelines">
<title>&tde; Writing Recommendations and Guidelines</title>

<para>To maintain a uniform documentation set, there are some consistency rules
to be followed, that you should know before starting. In this chapter you will
find guidelines about targeting your audience, English usage, and what to cover
when you are documenting an application.</para>

<para>We also offer some general writing tips to help you to
get started, provided by experienced &tde; documenters.</para>

<sect1 id="guidelines-audience">
<title>Writing for your Audience</title>

<para>Since &tde; is used by people with a wide range of abilities, from
completely new users to long-time gurus, the documentation should be
appropriate to this audience. Therefore, in general, documentation
shouldn't assume too much about the knowledge of the reader, without
being patronizing. There are no hard-and-fast rules, but here are some
tips that should help:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Remember that the audience varies with the application: for
example, a server control module has a very different user base than a user of a
game, and the manuals should reflect this. Don't insult the administrator
intelligence, and don't assume knowledge for the gamer that might not be
there.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Keep a logical progression of difficulty: Keep the first few pages
of the document simple, and accessible to users who have never seen the
application before. More technical information should appear towards the
end of the document.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>Remember also that different types of documentation have different
purposes:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Application Handbooks</term>
<listitem>
<para>These may go into great depths on the configuration, behavior and
sometimes the philosophy of an application.  There is scope to cover
corner cases of configuration, commonly asked questions, and advanced
troubleshooting techniques.</para> <para>They should also always contain
a complete reference to all the available menu functions and
configuration options for the application (but while these are required,
they should be certainly be considered a minimum of information to
provide.)</para>
<para>The Application Handbook should be answering the question:
<quote>What are all the things I can do with this application?</quote></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>User Guide</term>
<listitem>
<para>A much higher level overview of &tde; and its applications.  This
aims to be the first stop for users to look for information, and should
be task based.</para>
<para>When writing for the User Guide, you should assume a working
default installation of &tde;, and you do not need to cover all cases of
unusual configurations, only the very common variations, nor should you
cover in-depth troubleshooting.  You might provide answers to some very
common configuration errors (or not, as appropriate) and refer to the
Application Manual, the Application's Website, mailing list, and any
appropriate man pages for more detailed information.</para>
<para>Most people reading this guide do not have an actual problem, they
simply want to achieve a goal, and don't yet know how, or where to find
that information.</para>
<para>The User Guide should be answering the question: <quote>How do I
do <replaceable>this common task, &eg; send an email, play a
movie</replaceable>?</quote>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>What's This Help</term>
<listitem>
<para>A very focused and specific type of assistance, about a single
configuration or interface item.  Again you should not really attempt to
cover all cases here, only common ones, and explain what the option
does, not why it is there.  Refer users to the Application Handbook if
appropriate, for more information.</para>
<para>Provide an example of the expected input, if that is not clear
from the context.</para>
<para>The What's This Help is most often answering the question: <quote>Do I
need to fill in this box? If so, what do I put in it?</quote></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</sect1>


<sect1 id="guidelines-english-usage">
<title>English Usage Guidelines and Recommendations</title>

<para>&tde; documentation is written in
standard US English (rather than any other regional variety of
English). We have a set of standard forms of certain words (such as
<quote>email</quote> instead of <quote>e-mail</quote>) to improve
consistency across all documentation. Work is underway to expand and
formalize this list, but for the moment, it is located at <ulink
url="http://www.kde.me.uk/index.php?page=Consistency+rules">http://www.kde.me.uk/index.php?page=Consistency+rules</ulink>.
There are also standard names for &tde; widgets, which are listed in
<xref linkend="widget-names" /></para> 

<para>A good way to catch simple errors
is to read the text out loud, or have someone else read it to
you. Passages that don't flow easily or have obviously awkward construction
of the type you may miss on the screen, will usually become blindingly
obvious when you hear them. This is especially the case with detecting
really long sentences, as you will run out of breath and turn
blue.</para>

<para>Some tips about writing readable sentences:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Use complete sentences. Not fragments. Like these ones.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Avoid run-on sentences, sentences that cover several different
subjects, or sentences that could be broken up into several sentences;
avoid sentences that can fill a whole paragraph all by themselves and
that are really long, like this one, which is all of the above.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Use a comma before <quote>and</quote> in compound sentences, &eg;
<quote>Use the left mouse button to select and copy text, and the
middle mouse button to paste it.</quote></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Keep to logical sentence order.</para>
<para>For example, <quote>&konqueror; is a web browser with the
ability to browse file systems and it includes a javascript
interpreter.</quote> (Do you see why this is awkward?)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Try not to use the same word several times in the same sentence.
An exception to this, is an application command or technical word,
where this repetition is necessary, and improves clarity.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Do not start sentences with any of <quote>and,</quote>
<quote>so,</quote> <quote>but,</quote> <quote>because,</quote> or
<quote>however.</quote></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Try to avoid contractions, rather spell out both words; &eg;,
<quote>it is</quote> rather than <quote>it's</quote>; <quote>can
not</quote> rather than <quote>can't</quote></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>There is no need to worry about simple text formatting such as
leaving two spaces after punctuation or indenting paragraphs. This is
all handled by DocBook &XML; and the <acronym>XSLT</acronym>
stylesheets in use.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>

<para>Remember, we have also an active proofreading team, and there is
always someone to help you with grammar, so just
write and have fun!</para>


</sect1>

<sect1 id="guidelines-include">
<title>What to Include</title>
<para>For most applications, a structure something like this would be
appropriate:
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Introduction: A basic description of what the application does and
any noteworthy features, &etc;.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Using <replaceable>KApp</replaceable>: Task-based description of
the most common uses of the application.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Program reference: Description of all of the features of the
application. This would usually include a menu reference, but might also
include command line options, syntax description, &etc;, if they are
appropriate to the application.</para>
<para>This is required for all &tde; applications that you at a minimum
cover any application specific menu entries, and strongly recommended
that you cover all the standard ones too (in case users are reading the
manual outside of &tde;, or yours happens to be the first one they read,
and it provides consistency.  Cut and paste is your friend here.)</para>
<para>Note that although this is a required section, and for some
applications it is the only section, it should be considered a
minimum.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Frequently Asked Questions: List the most common questions and
problems that users have with the application, and their
solutions. <quote>How do I ...?</quote>-type questions are especially
appropriate.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Credits and License: A list of those who contributed to the
documentation, and a link to the &GNU; Free Documentation License, under
which all &tde; documentation is licensed.</para>
<para>This chapter is required for all &tde; documents, and must have
<emphasis>at least</emphasis> the two license links (one for the
document, and one for the application)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Installation: This chapter can be automatically generated,
provided that the application follows the usual &tde; compilation
procedure (&ie; <command>./configure</command>, <command>make &amp;&amp; make
install</command>). If you need to add extra information about compiling
or installing the application, it can go here.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</para>

<para>You will find a template document with these sections in
<filename>trunk/KDE/kdelibs/kdoctools/template.docbook</filename> file in &tde;
&svn; repository.</para>
</sect1>

</chapter>

<chapter id="writing-docs">
<title>Writing Documentation: Procedures and Tools</title>

<para>If you're worried about having to learn a lot of new tools and
procedures in order to write documentation, you don't need to,
because the information we've covered so far is everything you need to
know to be able to contribute. Although we <emphasis>do</emphasis> have
some tools we use and procedures we follow, it's not vital that everyone
knows them in detail, especially when starting out.</para>

<para>For example, all
&tde; documentation is written in DocBook &XML;, but we're very happy to
receive documentation written in plain text. There are people on the
documentation team who are very familiar with DocBook, and can easily
add the markup if the content is there.</para>

<para>Another example: if you are starting to document an application from
scratch, you don't need to get the sources of the current documentation. But
if you are starting from existing documentation, you don't need to know
about how to get the sources, there are other means to do that.</para>

<para>Of course, if you want to learn about DocBook, you can. After a
little practice, you will probably find that it's not as hard as it
looks. And if you learn about dealing with a &svn; repository, you will
be able to integrate yourself to the regular &tde; development process
(upload your changes, work together with other developers, &etc;)
</para>

 
<sect1 id="getting-the-sources">
<title>Getting the Documentation Sources</title>


<note><para>If you are starting your document from scratch, you probably do not
need to read this section, and may start working right now.
</para></note>

<para>
You are welcome to use plain text to contribute to &tde; documentation.
It is a great way to start, and we strongly encourage it.
If you will miss the power of the DocBook format as
you improve your documentation skills, then you can learn it. In the mean
time, someone will manually edit the plain text to add the DocBook
markup and commit it to &tde; &svn; repository, removing the burden of doing most of the
more complex stuff covered in this very guide. We'll take a look at writing in
DocBook and using &svn; later in this document, so if you're interested, read on,
but if you want to use plain text, you can go directly to
<xref linkend="getting-plain-text" />.
</para>

<para>Documentation for &tde;, like the rest of the source code, is kept
in a &svn; repository. &svn; provides a way for
many developers to work on the same source code (or in our case, the
same documentation), and has many useful features to help with this. For
example, previous versions of every file are saved so that any mistakes
can be quickly backed out, if they can't be easily corrected.</para>

<para>The basic principle behind &svn; is simple: one server stores a
definitive copy of the files making up a project. This is known as the
<firstterm>repository</firstterm>. Each developer can download the files to make
their own private copy, named <firstterm>working copy</firstterm> or
<firstterm>sandbox</firstterm>. Using &svn;, the developers can upload their
modifications to the main repository (a process called &quot;committing&quot;)
or update their own copy to reflect recent changes made by others.
</para>

<para>There are two main ways edit the contents of a &tde; document you
want to improve: using plain text or DocBook.</para>


<sect2 id="getting-plain-text">
<title>Working with plain text sources</title>

<para>
The <ulink url="http://docs.kde.org/index_head.html">docs.kde.org
website</ulink> displays most of the &tde; documentation in &HTML; format, updated
daily from the &svn; repository. There are two versions available in the website: the
<ulink url="http://docs.kde.org/">stable version</ulink> and the
<ulink url="http://docs.kde.org/index_head.html">&tde; from &svn; version</ulink>.
You will always use the latest version of the documentation, &ie; the
<ulink url="http://docs.kde.org/index_head.html">&tde; from &svn; version</ulink>.
</para>
<para>
The <ulink url="http://docs.kde.org/index_head.html">docs.kde.org
website</ulink> presents a quick and easy method of retrieving
the latest version of the &tde; documentation. Clicking the name of the
application you want to document in the list will open the documentation in
your web browser. Simply copy the text from the website to your favorite
text editor, edit it , and submit the results in
plain text to the &tde; Documentation mailing list,
<email>kde-doc-english@kde.org</email>. Please note that not all &tde;
applications are listed there. If you cannot find the documentation of
the application you want to work with, then you can request it by sending a
message to the &tde; Documentation mailing list.
</para>

<para>
Now you know everything you need to start working. When you are
finished writing, you may want to read <xref linkend="other-tasks" />. Have fun!
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="getting-docbook">
<title>Retrieving the DocBook sources</title>

<para>
The latest DocBook sources are located inside the &tde; repository.
Now you need to find and retrieve them.
</para>
<para>
The software inside the &tde; repository is divided into
<firstterm>modules</firstterm>, which are used to organize the different
software projects inside the repository. Modules are the top-level folders in the
&svn; repository folder tree, and each one contains a group of related
applications. These modules are sometimes released in binary
form as <firstterm>packages</firstterm>. If you know the name of the package
your application belongs to, you probably know the module name as well, as
they are frequently the same. You need to know in which module your application
is, to retrieve its DocBook sources. For instance, &kmail; is in the
tdepim module, &quanta; in the tdewebdev module, &cervisia; in the tdesdk module
and so on. If you need any help in this process, don't hesitate to ask. Each
module contains a folder named &quot;doc&quot;, and inside it, you can find the
DocBook sources.
</para>

<para>
To access the repository, you can use the <command>svn</command> command line application<!--,
the &cervisia; application--> or browse the <ulink url="http://websvn.kde.org">&tde; WebSVN website (websvn.kde.org)</ulink>.
</para>

<para>The <ulink url="http://websvn.kde.org">websvn.kde.org</ulink> is a
web
based representation of the contents of the &svn; repository. It is easy
to download files using <ulink url="http://websvn.kde.org">websvn.kde.org</ulink>,
the operating system or desktop you use does not matter.
</para>

<para>
Retrieving your own working copy of the repository has many advantages. You
will be able to use your working copy to create files containing the changes you
made, to update your copy with changes made by other documenters, and if you get
a &tde; &svn; account, to upload your changes directly to the repository.
But this is out of the scope of this section. Here we will show you simply
how to retrieve the sources using &svn;<!-- or &cervisia,;--> the easiest way we can.
You can get more information about these tools (they are really useful)
by reading the <xref linkend="managing-svn" />.</para>

<procedure>
<title>Retrieving documentation sources using WebSVN</title>

<step><para>
Go to <ulink url="http://websvn.kde.org">http://websvn.kde.org</ulink>
using your favorite web browser. Let's suppose you are looking for
&cervisia;'s documentation sources.
</para></step>

<step><para> The &tde; repository is divided into <quote>trunk</quote>
(also known as HEAD, where development is going on,
<quote>branches</quote>, where both stable and working branches live,
and <quote>tags</quote>, where you can retrieve snapshots of sources at
a release.  Most work for documentation goes on in <quote>trunk</quote>,
so click there.</para></step>

<step><para>The main &tde; modules are in the <quote>TDE</quote> folder,
so click on that.
</para></step>

<step><para>
Click the &quot;trunk&quot; link to get the main branch listing. Click on &quot;TDE&quot;
to get the list of modules from a &tde; release.
</para></step>

<step><para>
&cervisia; is part of the tdesdk module (&tde; software
development kit module). Therefore, click the <quote>tdesdk</quote> item on the
list. The contents of the tdesdk module will be displayed.
</para></step>

<step><para> Click the <quote>doc</quote> item on the list, to see the
contents of the documentation folder of the module. The contents of the
doc (documentation) folder will be displayed.  </para></step>

<step><para>
Select the application you want to work with from
the list (in our case, <quote>cervisia</quote>). All &cervisia;'s
documentation source files will be displayed, being images or DocBook files.
</para></step>

<step><para>
Now you reached the list of files that are part of
&cervisia;'s documentation, including
images and DocBook sources. The DocBook sources are files in the format
<filename class="extension">*.docbook</filename>. In this case, there is only
one file file in this format: <filename>index.docbook</filename>. Click this
file on the list. A list of <firstterm>revisions</firstterm> (versions)
of that file will be displayed.
</para></step>

<step><para>
Click the <quote>download</quote> link from the revision on the top of
the list. It is the most recent one. Save the file. Repeat this process
with all the files you want to download.
</para></step>
</procedure>

<para>
We use &kmail;'s documentation sources as example in the
following procedures.
</para>

<procedure>
<title>Retrieving documentation sources using &svn;</title>

<step><para>
Check if you have the &svn; client installed (hint: enter <command>svn</command> in the
terminal screen). If not, install the &svn; package using the tools provided by
your distribution.
</para></step>

<step><para>
Now it is time to download, or <firstterm>checkout</firstterm> the sources.
Using &svn;, type in the terminal:
<programlisting>mkdir <replaceable>path/to/working/folder</replaceable>
cd <replaceable>path/to/working/folder</replaceable>
svn checkout svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/<replaceable>trunk/KDE/module</replaceable>/doc/<replaceable>application</replaceable>
</programlisting>
where <replaceable>path/to/working/folder</replaceable> is the folder you want
to install the sources in your system, <replaceable>trunk/KDE/module</replaceable> is the
application's module location in the repository and <replaceable>application</replaceable> is the
application name. Remember to use small caps to type the application and
module names. In our example, &kmail; is in the tdepim module, so you would
enter:
<programlisting>svn checkout svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/KDE/kdepim/doc/kmail
</programlisting>
Note that only applications which are part of a regular &tde; release are under
<replaceable>trunk/KDE/</replaceable>. <application>Amarok</application> docs, for instance, is in the
multimedia module of extragear. Extragear is contains mature applications which are
not part of a &tde; release. To get <application>Amarok</application> docs, type in the terminal:

<programlisting>svn checkout svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/extragear/multimedia/doc/amarok
</programlisting>
</para></step>
</procedure>

<!--FIXME: update this section when Cervisia has svn support

<procedure>
<title>Retrieving documentation sources using &cervisia;</title>

<step><para>
Check if you have the &svn; and tdesdk &cervisia;
applications installed. If not, install the &svn; and tdesdk packages using the
tools provided by your distribution.
</para></step>

<step><para>
It is not really necessary to set up cervisia to download the sources, but you
may want to do that if you want to do more. For more information about setting
up &cervisia;, see <xref linkend="managing-svn" />.
</para></step>

<step><para>
To store the repository location using &cervisia;, choose the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Repository</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Repositories...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item. Click the
<guilabel>Add...</guilabel> button. Enter <quote><replaceable>:pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.kde.org:/home/kde</replaceable><quote>
in the <guilabel>Repository:</guilabel> edit box. Press <guibutton>OK</guibutton>.
You will see the repository you just entered on the repositories list.

<figure id="screenshot-repositories" float="1">
<title>A screenshot of &cervisia;'s Configure Access to Repositories dialog</title>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject><imagedata format="PNG" fileref="cervisia-repository.png"/></imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>A screenshot of &cervisia;'s Configure Access to
Repositories dialog</phrase></textobject>
</mediaobject>
</figure>
</para>

<para>Now you need to login. Select the repository on the list and press the
<guilabel>Login...</guilabel> button. A pop-up dialog will appear. Just press
<keycap>enter</keycap>.</para>

<para>If the <guilabel>Status</guilabel> column entry shows
<guilabel>Logged in</guilabel> instead of <guilabel>Not logged in</guilabel>,
it means you successfully configured the &tde; repository location in &cervisia;.
</para></step>

<step><para>
Now it is time to download, or <firstterm>checkout</firstterm> the sources.
Choose the <menuchoice><guimenu>Repository</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Checkout...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item.

<figure id="screenshot-checkout" float="1">
<title>A screenshot of &cervisia;'s Checkout dialog</title>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject><imagedata format="PNG" fileref="cervisia-checkout.png"/></imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>A screenshot of &cervisia;'s Checkout dialog</phrase></textobject>
</mediaobject>
</figure>
</para>

<para>
Select the &tde; repository location in the <guilabel>Repository:</guilabel>
drop down box. Enter in the <guilabel>Module:</guilabel> edit box the location
of the documentation sources, in the form  <quote><replaceable>module</replaceable>/doc/<replaceable>application</replaceable><quote>,
where <replaceable>module</replaceable> is the
application's module name and <replaceable>application</replaceable> is the
application name. In our example, since &kmail; is in the tdepim module, you
should enter <quote><replaceable>tdepim</replaceable>/doc/<replaceable>kmail</replaceable><quote>.
Enter in the <guilabel>Working folder:</guilabel> edit box
the folder under which the sources should be downloaded. Press
<guilabel>OK</guilabel>.
</para></step>
</procedure>-->

</sect2>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="quanta">
<title>&quanta;</title>

<para>
&quanta; is a friendly editor for <acronym>SGML</acronym> and &XML;
documents. &quanta; features syntax highlighting, autocompletion, autoclosing
and code folding for DocBook tags, easy access for the &tde; documentation
tools, <link linkend="using-meinproc">&meinproc;</link> and
<link linkend="using-checkxml">&checkxml;</link>.
</para>

<screenshot id="screenshot-quanta">
<screeninfo>A screenshot of &quanta;'s main window</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject><imagedata fileref="quanta.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>A screenshot of &quanta;'s main window</phrase></textobject>
<caption><para>A screenshot of &quanta;'s main window</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<para>
Some of the tools available for DocBook editing are the document
structure sidebar, tag editor sidebar and, starting with &quanta; 3.4 (which
is part of &tde; 3.4), &quanta; offers a DocBook toolbar, complete with table
and list wizards, ui elements, admonitions, &tde; tools and other standard
tags. While &quanta; offers a visual page editor for html and xhtml
pages, there is no support yet for DocBook visual editing. We highlight here
some of these features.
</para>


<variablelist>


<varlistentry>
<term>DocBook Toolbars</term>

<listitem><para>
The DocBook toobars offer easy access to the most common DocBook tags,
plus the list, table and image wizards. You can check your DocBook document
using the <inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="xmlval.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject><guibutton>checkXML</guibutton> button from the
<guilabel>Tools</guilabel> toolbar: the output of the script will be displayed
in he <guilabel>Messages</guilabel> sidebar, in the bottom of &quanta;'s main
window. If there is no output, that usually means no errors.
To process the DocBook into html files, use the
<inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject><guibutton>meinproc</guibutton> button on the same toolbar.
</para>

<note><para>
Depending on the version of some XML utilities used by &quanta;, the
<inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="xmlval.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject><guibutton>checkXML</guibutton> and <inlinemediaobject>
<imageobject><imagedata fileref="xsltproc.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject><guibutton>meinproc</guibutton> scripts
can present bugs. Starting from the upcoming &tde; 3.4.2 release, these bugs
will not exist anymore. But until there, if you experience these bugs, (in
special if &konqueror; is not starting up when using the
<guibutton>meinproc</guibutton> script or there is no output when using the
<guibutton>checkXML</guibutton> script, you can get and install the
<ulink url="http://kde-files.org/content/show.php?content=26654">updated docbook
scripts from kde-files.org</ulink> to solve these issues.
</para></note>

<para><screenshot id="screenshot-quanta-toolbars">
<screeninfo>A screenshot of &quanta;'s DocBook toolbar</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject><imagedata fileref="quanta-toolbars.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>A screenshot of &quanta;'s DocBook toolbar</phrase></textobject>
<caption><para>A screenshot of &quanta;'s DocBook toolbar</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
</listitem>

</varlistentry>


<varlistentry>

<term>Tag Editor</term>

<listitem><para>
The tag or attributes editor is located on the right sidebar, and it shows
the available attributes for the tag which is currently being edited.
The tag editor helps you to edit the attributes for the current tag: just click
on the <guilabel>Value</guilabel> column of any attribute to edit it.
</para>

<para><screenshot id="screenshot-quanta-tag">
<screeninfo>A screenshot of &quanta;'s attribute editor sidebar</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject><imagedata fileref="quanta-tag.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>A screenshot of &quanta;'s attribute editor sidebar</phrase></textobject>
<caption><para>A screenshot of &quanta;'s attribute editor sidebar</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

</para></listitem>

</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>

<term>Documentation Sidebar</term>

<listitem><para>
Another useful feature is the documentation sidebar, which allows you to
download and use documentation packages as offline reference. This guide is
also available offline, using &quanta;'s documentation
sidebar. Just grab and install the
<ulink url="http://kde-files.org/content/show.php?content=26176">&tde; Doc
Primer documentation package</ulink>. The documentation sidebar is on the right
side of the main window.
</para>

<para><screenshot id="screenshot-quanta-doc-primer">
<screeninfo>A screenshot of &quanta;'s documentation sidebar</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject><imagedata fileref="quanta-doc-primer.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>A screenshot of &quanta;'s documentation sidebar</phrase></textobject>
<caption><para>A screenshot of &quanta;'s documentation sidebar, showing the
&tde; Doc Primer</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>

<term>Entities Autocompletion</term>

<listitem><para>
&quanta; offers autocompletion for entities. However, this feature is
hardly useful without the &tde; entities definitions. To generate the entities
list for the &tde;, follow the procedure below:
</para>

<note><para>
The autocompletion feature still has some bugs in the 3.4.1 release.
These bugs are fixed, and will be available starting from the 3.4.2 release.
</para></note>

<procedure>
<title>Generating and installing the <filename>entities.tag</filename> file</title>

<step><para>
Open &quanta;. Choose the <menuchoice><guimenu>DTD</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Load &amp; Convert DTD</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item.
</para></step>

<step><para>
Now, we have to select the right dtd file to convert.
On the dialog, select the &tde; installation folder (usually
<filename class="directory">/usr</filename> or
<filename class="directory">/opt/trinity</filename>. If you cannot find it, type
<screen><prompt>$</prompt><userinput>tde-config --prefix</userinput></screen>
on a terminal application. The dtd file we want is named
<filename>kdex.dtd</filename> under
<filename class="directory">share/apps/ksgmltools2/customization/dtd/</filename>.
Select it and press <guibutton>OK</guibutton>. A new Document Type Editing
Package (DTEP) for kdex will be created.
</para></step>

<step><para>
Now that you have converted the dtd, you can either use it directly,
by choosing the <menuchoice><guimenu>DTD</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Change the DTD...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> and selecting the
kdex dtd. But the best solution is to install the
<filename>entities.tag</filename> file for automatic use with the &tde;
docbook dtds.
</para></step>
<step><para>
Now, let's copy the file from the kdex dtep to the kde-docbook
dtep. You can use a console application or a file manager to perform this action.
These locations are under the <filename class="directory">TDEHOME</filename>
folder, the folder that contains your &tde; settings and application data,
usually, <filename class="directory">~/.trinity</filename>. If you cannot find it, type
<screen><prompt>$</prompt><userinput>tde-config --localprefix</userinput></screen>
on a terminal application. The dtep folder is under
<filename class="directory">TDEHOME/share/apps/quanta/dtep</filename>.
The simplest way to do copy it is using a terminal application (&eg; &konsole;).
</para></step>

<step><para>
Start a console application and enter the command:
<screen><prompt>$</prompt><command>cp `tde-config --localprefix`/share/apps/quanta/dtep/kdex/entities.tag `tde-config \
--localprefix`/share/apps/quanta/dtep/kde-docbook-4.1.2/entities.tag</command></screen>
</para></step>

<step><para>Restart &quanta;.</para></step>

</procedure>

<para>
<screenshot id="screenshot-quanta-entities">
<screeninfo>A screenshot of &quanta;'s entities auto-completion feature</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject><imagedata fileref="quanta-entities.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>A screenshot of &quanta;'s entities auto-completion feature</phrase></textobject>
<caption><para>A screenshot of &quanta;'s entities auto-completion feature</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para></listitem>

</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>

<term>Document Structure</term>

<listitem><para>
finally, the document structure displays the logical representation of your
document. By left mouse button clicking on an element, your cursor will taken
to the element's position in the document. By right mouse button clicking on an
element, you are presented with a number of actions that deal with navigating
and updating the tree.
</para>

<para><screenshot id="screenshot-quanta-structure">
<screeninfo>A screenshot of &quanta;'s document structure sidebar</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject><imagedata fileref="quanta-doc-structure.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>A screenshot of &quanta;'s document structure sidebar</phrase></textobject>
<caption><para>A screenshot of &quanta;'s document structure sidebar</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

<para>
&quanta; is part of the tdewebdev module, which is released as part
of &tde;. Binary packages are available for the majority of the
distributions. Quanta can be easily extended to support custom scripts,
toolbars and documentation sidebars. For more information, check the
application handbook.
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="kate">
<title>&kate;</title>

<para>
&kate; is an extensible and powerful text editor which is part of the
tdebase module. &kate; can syntax highlight DocBook documents out of the box,
and is generally a very powerful editor, but you can get even more
XML specific functionality installing the XML plugin for &kate;.
</para>

<procedure>
<title>Installing the XML plugin for &kate;</title>

<step><para>
The XML plugin for &kate; is available as part of the tdeaddons module, which
is released as part of &tde;. Binary packages are available for the majority of
the distributions. Install the binary package using your distribution tools or
compile tdeaddons to install the plugin.
</para></step>

<step><para>
Open the <guilabel>Configure &kate;</guilabel>
dialog by choosing the 
<menuchoice><guimenu>Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Configure &kate;...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item.
</para></step>

<step><para>
Select the <guilabel>Plugins</guilabel> item from the
<guilabel>Application</guilabel> tree. Check the <guilabel>&kate; XML
Completion</guilabel> and the <guilabel>&kate; XML Validation</guilabel> boxes.
</para>

<screenshot id="screenshot-kate-plugin-config">
<screeninfo>A screenshot of &kate;'s Plugin Manager Configure
Dialog</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject><imagedata fileref="kate-plugin.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>A screenshot of &kate;'s Plugin Manager Configure
Dialog</phrase></textobject>
<caption><para>A screenshot of &kate;'s Plugin Manager Configure
Dialog</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</step>

<step><para>
Press <guibutton>OK</guibutton>.
</para></step>

</procedure>

<para>
With the XML plugin for &kate; installed, you will have autocompletion,
autoclosing for DocBook tags and entities. Since &tde; documentation uses
entities widely, this is a very welcome feature. Additional XML tools will be
available trough the <guimenu>XML</guimenu> menu (in special, trough the
<guimenuitem>Validate XML</guimenuitem> menu item, which will allow you to
check your DocBook documents). The output of this action will appear in the
<guibutton>XML Checker Output</guibutton> button in the side bar located in
the lower part of &kate;'s main window.
</para>

<screenshot id="screenshot-kate-validate-xml">
<screeninfo>A screenshot of &kate;'s Main Window showing the XML Checker
Output</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject><imagedata fileref="kate-validate-xml.png"
format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>A screenshot of &kate;'s Main Window showing the XML Checker
Output</phrase></textobject>
<caption><para>A screenshot of &kate;'s Main Window showing the XML Checker
Output</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

</sect1>


<sect1 id="emacs-and-psgml">
<title>Emacs and Psgml</title>
<para>The venerable &Emacs; editor has a powerful
<acronym>SGML</acronym> and &XML; editing mode called psgml. The price
of this power is a steeper learning curve than the other editors, so if
you haven't used &Emacs; before, you will probably want to try the other
editors first. If, on the other hand, you're already familiar with
&Emacs;, then psgml is your best choice.</para>

<para>Installation of psgml is beyond the scope of this document, but it
should simply be a case of installing appropriate packages for your
distribution. The relevant configuration for &tde;-related documentation
is simple. Just tell psgml where the &tde; catalog files are located
with the following line in your <filename>.emacs</filename> file:
<programlisting>
(setq sgml-catalog-files 
  (list "CATALOG" "<replaceable>TDEDIR</replaceable>/share/apps/ksgmltools2/customization/catalog"))
</programlisting>
where you should replace <replaceable>TDEDIR</replaceable> with the path
to your &tde; installation. You might also want to use the following
line to instruct &Emacs; to use psgml to open all <literal
role="extension">.docbook</literal> files:
<programlisting>
(setq auto-mode-alist
      (cons '("\\.docbook$" . sgml-mode) auto-mode-alist))
</programlisting>
</para>

<para>There are of course plenty of other settings in psgml mode which
you can change to your taste: see the psgml <command>info</command>
documentation for more details. A sample <filename>.emacs</filename>
file, with some customizations useful for writing &tde; documentation,
can be found at <ulink
url="http://people.fruitsalad.org/phil/kde/dot-emacs-psgml">http://people.fruitsalad.org/phil/kde/dot-emacs-psgml</ulink>.</para>

<para>Some basic keystrokes in psgml are:

<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term><keycombo action="seq"><keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>C</keycap>
</keycombo><keycap>/</keycap></keycombo></term>
<listitem><para>End current element. This inserts an end tag for the
currently open element.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><keycombo action="simul"><keycap>Meta</keycap><keysym>Tab</keysym>
</keycombo></term>
<listitem><para>Completes the current tag or entity,
context-sensitively. This will only complete on tags that are allowed at
the current point in the document. Note that, because indentation is
rarely used in &tde; documentation, it is generally safe to remap this
function to just the <keysym>Tab</keysym> key.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><keycombo action="seq">
<keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>C</keycap></keycombo>
<keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>F</keycap></keycombo>
<keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>E</keycap></keycombo>
</keycombo></term>
<listitem><para>Fold current element. This compresses the current
element so that only the starting tag appears. One use of this is to
fold all the <sgmltag>chapter</sgmltag> elements in a document, to get
an overview of the document on one screen, and make navigation around a
long document easier. You can unfold elements with the shortcut <keycombo action="seq">
<keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>C</keycap></keycombo>
<keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>U</keycap></keycombo>
<keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>E</keycap></keycombo>
</keycombo>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>
</para>

<para>One particularly useful psgml feature that isn't well documented
is the sgml-parent-document variable. Setting this variable
appropriately tells psgml that this file is part of a larger
document. This enables the full range of psgml features for this file,
such as context-sensitive element completion. To use this feature, place
the following in a comment at the end of the child file (with the
arguments adjusted appropriately):
<programlisting>
Local Variables:
sgml-parent-document:("index.docbook" "book" "chapter")
End:
</programlisting>
The first argument is the name of the parent file (which will almost
always be <filename>index.docbook</filename> in &tde;
documentation). The second argument is the top-level (or
<quote>root</quote>) element of the whole document (&ie;, in the parent
file). The third argument is the top-level element in this file.</para>

</sect1>



<sect1 id="check-docs">
<title>Checking and Viewing the Documents</title>
<para>There are a couple of &tde;-specific tools for manipulating
DocBook files, namely &meinproc; and
&checkxml;. &checkxml; (as the name
suggests) is used to check that documents are valid, well-formed
&XML;, and &meinproc; converts DocBook files to
&HTML;. Here's some hints on using each of them:</para>

<sect2 id="using-checkxml">
<title>Using &checkxml;</title>

<para>&checkxml; is a simple command with only one argument: the file to
check. However, the output can be a bit daunting, since one small
mistake can cause a cascade of errors. The trick is to look at the first
error, fix that error, save the file, and run &checkxml; again. Often,
fixing that one error will get rid of all the other error messages. When
running &meinproc;, the same procedure applies.</para>
<!-- TODO: Some common errors and how to fix them -->

<para>Most errors in DocBook sources fall into one of a few
categories. Here are descriptions of some of the most common errors and
their solutions:</para>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term>Opening and ending tag mismatch</term>
<listitem>
<screen>
<computeroutput>
index.docbook:880: parser error : Opening and ending tag mismatch: para 
line 879 and sect2
&lt;/sect2&gt;
        ^
</computeroutput>
</screen>

<para>This is possibly the most common type of error. It's
caused either by an element that hasn't been closed, or by tags that
overlap. The error above was generated by the following markup:
<programlisting>
<markup>
<![CDATA[
<sect2>
...
878: running &meinproc;, the same procedure applies.</para>
879: <para>&checkxml; is a simple command with
880: </sect2>
...]]>
</markup>
</programlisting>

</para>

<para>The <sgmltag class="starttag">para</sgmltag> tag on line 879 has
not been closed before the <sgmltag class="endtag">sect2</sgmltag> on
line 880, causing the error. The simple fix in this case is to add a <sgmltag
class="endtag">para</sgmltag> before the closing <sgmltag
class="endtag">sect2</sgmltag>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Element does not follow the DTD</term>

<listitem>
<screen width="80">
<computeroutput>
index.docbook:932: element qandaentry: validity error : Element qandaentry content 
does not follow the DTD, expecting (blockinfo? , revhistory? , question , answer*), got (answer)
&lt;/para&gt;&lt;/answer&gt;&lt;/qandaentry&gt;
                             ^
</computeroutput>
</screen>

<para>This error is caused by an element in the document not matching
the requirements of the DocBook <acronym>DTD</acronym> (Document Type
Definition). The <acronym>DTD</acronym> specifies what each element must
contain. This list is shown after <errortext>expecting</errortext> in
the error message. This so-called <quote>content model</quote> is quite
difficult to understand at first: refer to the Duck Book and the section
<quote>Understanding Content Models</quote> for full information.</para>

<para>The text after <errortext>got</errortext> shows the content
actually found in the document.</para>

<para>In the example above, we have a <sgmltag>qandaentry</sgmltag>
which is missing the required <sgmltag>question</sgmltag> element. This
was generated by the following input:
<programlisting>
<markup>
<![CDATA[
<qandaset>
<qandaentry><answer><para>An answer
</para></answer></qandaentry>
</qandaset>
]]>
</markup>
</programlisting>
</para>

<para>Adding a <sgmltag>question</sgmltag> element before the
<sgmltag>answer</sgmltag> fixes the problem.</para>

<para>An easy mistake to make is to forget to put a
<sgmltag>para</sgmltag> element around text in, for example, a
<sgmltag>listitem</sgmltag> or a
<sgmltag>sect<replaceable>n</replaceable></sgmltag>. This will be shown
as <errortext>CDATA</errortext> in the <errortext>got</errortext>
section of the error.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="using-meinproc">
<title>Using &meinproc;</title> 

<para>The most common way to run &meinproc; is simply as

<screen><userinput>&meinproc; <filename><replaceable>docbook-file</replaceable></filename></userinput></screen> where

<filename><replaceable>docbook-file</replaceable></filename> is usually
<filename>index.docbook</filename>. This command creates &HTML; pages
from the DocBook file. Note that these pages are only viewable in
&tde;-based browsers (like &konqueror;). If you need to view the &HTML;
output in another browser (for example, if you're placing it on line),
use 

<screen><userinput>&meinproc; <option>--stylesheet</option> <filename><replaceable>stylesheet-name</replaceable></filename> <filename><replaceable>docbook-file</replaceable></filename>
</userinput></screen> 

where
<filename><replaceable>stylesheet-name</replaceable></filename> is the
full path to one of the &XSL; stylesheets in <filename
class="directory">$<envar>TDEDIR</envar>/share/apps/ksgmltools/customization</filename>.
To produce output suitable for the web, you can use
<filename>tde-web.xsl</filename> or
<filename>tde-chunk-online.xsl</filename>. See the
<filename>README</filename> file in that directory for more details.
</para>
</sect2>

</sect1>

</chapter>


<chapter id="docbook-intro">
<title>DocBook Introduction</title>

<para>All &tde; documentation is produced in DocBook &XML; format, and
writers are encouraged to learn it (although it's by no means necessary,
and we're very happy to receive documentation written in plain
text). Although DocBook can look somewhat intimidating to beginners, the
markup is extremely self-descriptive, and many people find it easier
than &HTML; to learn.</para>

<para>In this chapter, we'll just take a basic overview of the ideas
behind DocBook. For detailed information about individual tags and so
on, please see <ulink url="help:/khelpcenter/markup/index.html">
The TDE DocBook Markup Guide</ulink>.</para>

<sect1 id="docbook-overview">
<title>Overview</title>
<para>DocBook is just an application of &XML;, so if you're familiar
with &XML;, then you'll feel right at home. If not, don't worry, as most
of the gory details aren't required knowledge for simply writing and
updating documentation. A DocBook file (and, indeed, any &XML; file)
consists of plain text, with tags surrounding some text to tell you (or
a computer) what that text represents. So, a snippet from a DocBook file
might look like:

<!-- Gah, this needs wordwrapping to look vaguely sensible, but -->
<!-- fill-mode doesn't love me, and is making it difficult -->
<programlisting>
<sgmltag class="starttag">para</sgmltag>To display the clipboard history, click on the <sgmltag class="genentity">klipper</sgmltag> icon
 in the <sgmltag class="genentity">tde</sgmltag> panel, or press <sgmltag class="starttag">keycombo
action="simul"</sgmltag><sgmltag
 class="genentity">Ctrl</sgmltag><sgmltag
 class="genentity">Alt</sgmltag><sgmltag
 class="starttag">keycap</sgmltag>V<sgmltag
 class="endtag">keycap</sgmltag><sgmltag
 class="endtag">keycombo</sgmltag>. Previous 
clipboard entries are shown
 at the top of the pop-up menu which 
appears.<sgmltag
 class="endtag">para</sgmltag>
</programlisting>
The <sgmltag class="starttag">para</sgmltag> and <sgmltag
class="endtag">para</sgmltag> show the start and end, respectively, of a
paragraph. These delimiting marks are called <quote>tags</quote>, and
the content they contain (along with the tags) is called an
<quote>element</quote>. The <sgmltag class="starttag">keycombo</sgmltag>
tag has an extra piece of information specified: <sgmltag
class="attribute">action="simul"</sgmltag>. This is called an
<quote>attribute,</quote> and makes the tag more specific. The words
surrounded by &amp; and ; are <quote>entities</quote>. They're simply
variables that expand to some other text, and are widely used in &tde;
documentation. See <xref linkend="kde-specialities"/> for more
information about entities. Tags, entities, comments and other parts of
&XML; that aren't simple text are referred to as <quote>markup.</quote>
</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="content-and-presentation">
<title>Content and Presentation</title> 

<para>One of the basic principles behind the use of DocBook in &tde; is
that content and presentation are strictly separated. DocBook files
contain the content, and &XSL; files contain the information about
presentation. This has a number of advantages, some of which are:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>When writing, you don't have to worry about whether the
information is well presented, just that the information you're writing
is correct and readable.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>All &tde; documentation has a similar look, so once readers are
familiar with conventions in one document, they're familiar with all documents.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Documentation is future-proofed, since by providing as much
information about content as possible, future formats, search engines,
&etc; are likely to be catered for easily.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>

<para>In practice, this means that you should add markup that describes
what things <emphasis>are</emphasis> and not how they should appear. So,
in the example above, the <sgmltag class="starttag">keycombo</sgmltag> (a
keyboard shortcut) tells the reader (or computer) that the keys &Ctrl;,
&Alt; and <keycap>V</keycap> should be pressed simultaneously, but
doesn't say anything about how that should be displayed in the final
output. (In fact, it appears as <quote><keycombo
action="simul">&Ctrl;&Alt;<keycap>V</keycap></keycombo></quote>, but it
could equally be converted to <quote>C-M-V</quote> &agrave; la &Emacs;
or even some other way of showing keyboard shortcuts. What's important
is that the DocBook source has the <emphasis>information</emphasis>
necessary to work out what is being referred to.) 
</para>
</sect1>

<!-- I'm not sure how necessary this is, since most of the stuff I was -->
<!-- going to write is alread covered in Chapter 5 of the DocBook -->
<!-- reference (Phil)-->
<sect1 id="docbook-structure">
<title>Structure</title>
<para> (&lt;book&gt; &lt;chapter&gt; &lt;sectn&gt;
&lt;para&gt;)</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="kde-specialities">
<title>&tde; Specialities</title>
<para>TDE-isms: entities, necessary bits (credits, translation
		stuff)</para>

<sect2 id="entities">
<title>Entities</title>
<para>Entities (which are simply variables which expand to some other
text) are an important part of DocBook markup, and are used particularly
widely in &tde; documentation. For example, there are entities defined
for almost all &tde; applications. Therefore, when referring to, for
example, &konqueror; in documentation, you should use:
<programlisting>
<sgmltag class="genentity">konqueror</sgmltag> is, among other things, a
web browser.
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>This has several advantages. Firstly, it ensures that applications
are capitalized and marked-up consistently across all &tde;
documentation. This means that you don't have to remember whether the
help center program is KHelpCenter, KHelpcenter or Khelpcenter: the
entity (which is always entirely lowercase) automatically expands to the
correct one. 
<!-- FIXME: there are probably some i18n advantages too, but I don't -->
<!-- know them offhand --></para>

<para>There are entities defined for several classes of names:
<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term>All &tde; applications</term>
<listitem>
<para>As mentioned before, all &tde;
applications have an entity. The entity name is in entirely lowercase,
and expands to the correctly capitalized version of the application
name. There is also an entity for &tde; itself: <sgmltag
class="genentity">tde</sgmltag>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Common English and technology abbreviations</term>
<listitem>
<para>For example, <quote>&ie;</quote> is written as <sgmltag
class="genentity">ie</sgmltag> and <quote>&eg;</quote> as <sgmltag
class="genentity">eg</sgmltag>. This ensures that the same markup and
capitalization are used for these abbreviations throughout &tde;
documentation. Technological abbreviations such as &HTTP; and &XML; also
have entities, which are capitalized as usual (&ie;, <sgmltag
class="genentity">HTTP</sgmltag> and <sgmltag
class="genentity">XML</sgmltag> for the previous examples).</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Trademarks</term>
<listitem>
<para>Names of companies and their products are often trademarked. For
this reason, it is important to mark them up with the
<sgmltag>trademark</sgmltag> tag, using the <sgmltag
class="attribute">class="registered"</sgmltag> attribute if
necessary. To reduce effort, and ensure that trademarks are given proper
acknowledgment, many common technology-related trademarks have been
given entities. For example, the entity <sgmltag
class="genentity">X-Window</sgmltag> expands to &X-Window;.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Contributor Names</term>
<listitem>
<para>Names of contributors to &tde; documentation have entities of the
form <sgmltag class="genentity">Firstname.Lastname</sgmltag> (or
<sgmltag class="genentity">Firstname.Initial.Lastname</sgmltag>). Email
addresses of contributors have entities of the form <sgmltag
class="genentity">Firstname.Lastname.mail</sgmltag>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Names of special keys</term>
<listitem>
<para>Names of keys on the keyboard are always marked up with either
<sgmltag>keycap</sgmltag> or <sgmltag>keysym</sgmltag>. Since it can be
difficult to distinguish between these two tags, entities have been
created for common keys, &eg;, <sgmltag class="genentity">Ctrl</sgmltag>
and <sgmltag class="genentity">Alt</sgmltag>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>
</para>

<para>The definitions of these entities can be found in the following
locations in &tde; <acronym>3</acronym>:
<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term>Items not requiring translation (&tde; application names,
technology abbreviations, trademarks)</term>
<listitem>
<para><filename>tdelibs/kdoctools/customization/entities/general.entities</filename></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Contributor names and email addresses</term>
<listitem>
<para><filename>tdelibs/kdoctools/customization/entities/contributor.entities</filename></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Language-specific terms and key names</term>
<listitem>
<para><filename>tdelibs/kdoctools/customization/en/user.entities</filename></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="necessary-sections">
<title>Necessary Sections</title>
<para>There are several sections that appear in all &tde; DocBook files,
even though they are not required by DocBook itself:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>  
<programlisting>
&lt;!ENTITY package "tde-module"&gt;
  &lt;!ENTITY % addindex "IGNORE"&gt;
  &lt;!ENTITY % English "INCLUDE"&gt;
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>This appears in the prologue immediately after the
<acronym>FPI</acronym>. See <ulink url="help:/khelpcenter/markup.html/#prologue">prologue</ulink>
for more details about this section.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><programlisting>&lt;!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS --&gt;</programlisting></para>
<para>This appears after the <sgmltag
class="starttag">authorgroup</sgmltag> element, and is a required
placeholder for use in translation (also known as <quote>i18n</quote>
from the number of letters between the first and the last of the word <quote>internationalization</quote>).</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>


</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>

</chapter>

<chapter id="managing-documentation">
<title>Sending the New Documents and Changes to &tde;</title>

<para>As part of the wider &tde; project, there are some things that
documentation writers need to be aware of. There are a large number of
other developers working on &tde;, and working together with all of them
is an important part of what we do.</para>

<sect1 id="release-schedule">
<title>Respecting the Release Schedule</title>
<para>String freezes, when we write, etc</para>

<warning>
<para>This needs reviewing by someone who pays more attention to
releases than I do.</para>
<!-- TODO cwoelz: OK, I'll do it. -->
</warning>

<para>The &tde; release process, in which we go from the fast-moving and
sometimes unstable world of the &tde; &svn; repository, to a stable, polished product, is never
exactly the same twice, but there are some common features:</para>

<para>A schedule for the next release of &tde; is published at <ulink
url="http://developer.kde.org">developer.kde.org</ulink>, with the
definitive guide to what will be happening and when. There will be two
or more <quote>freezes</quote>, when changes of a certain type are not
allowed in the &tde; &svn; repository:
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Feature Freeze</term>
<listitem>
<para>When feature freeze is active, developers are not allowed to
commit new features to the repository. This is a good time to start writing, since
the features available in the application during this period are the
same as the ones which will be available in the released version.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>String Freeze</term>
<listitem>
<para>Text strings appearing in the &tde; user interface and in the
documentation are not allowed to be changed. This is to allow
translators to provide thorough translations which will match the
release. We are still considering how to work during this period of
freeze. One method which we have tried is to continue writing, but hold
back all changes to be committed in one go, immediately before the
release.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="managing-svn">
<title>Managing the Sources with &svn;</title>

<para>You can find detailed information about how to use &svn; in conjunction
with &tde; in the <ulink url="http://quality.kde.org/develop/cvsguide/managestep.php">
Managing &tde; Sources with Subversion guide</ulink></para>

</sect1>

<!-- FIXME: Thinking better, we must decide if we remove this and simply
link to the quality site, or keep it. Better remove it.

<sect2 id="svn-checking-out">
<title><quote>Checking Out:</quote> Getting a copy of the &tde;
sources</title>
<para>The first stage in using &svn; is to make your own copy of the &tde;
source. This is known as <quote>checking out.</quote> To do this, make
sure the &svn; client is installed on your system, and follow these steps (from
<ulink url="http://developer.kde.org">developer.kde.org</ulink>):
<orderedlist>
<listitem><para>Install the following file as <filename>~/.cvsrc</filename>: 
<programlisting>cvs -z4 -q
diff -u3 -p
update -dP
checkout -P
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>Please don't use a higher value than -z4. It just creates
 unnecessary high load on the server which slows down the access for
 everybody while it certainly does not increase throughput.

<important><para>The <userinput>update -dP</userinput> is essential. Without this it won't work.</para>
</important></para>
</listitem>

<listitem><para>Execute the following commands (if you are not using the
<application>bash</application> shell, substitute the appropriate
command for <command>export</command>):
<screen>
<userinput><command>export
#ROOT=:pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.kde.org:/home/kde</command></userinput>
<userinput><command>cvs login</command></userinput>
</screen>
</para>

<para>Just press &Enter; if there is a question about a password. If you
 don't have a <filename>.cvspass</filename> file in your home directory
 create one (using <userinput><command>touch
 ~/.cvspass</command></userinput> - note the dot in
 <filename>.cvspass</filename>) and run <userinput><command>cvs
 login</command></userinput> again. 
</para>
</listitem>

<listitem>
<para>Run <userinput><command>cvs co arts tdelibs tdebase
<replaceable>other modules</replaceable></command></userinput> where
<replaceable>other modules</replaceable> is a list of the other modules
you need. <filename>arts</filename>, <filename>tdelibs</filename> and
<filename>tdebase</filename> are the minimum you will need to run a
&tde; desktop. If you are writing documentation for applications which
live in any other modules, you will need to add them to
<replaceable>other modules</replaceable> in the command above.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</para>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="svn-updating">
<title>Updating Your Sources</title>
<para>Keeping your copy of the sources up-to-date with the repository is
as simple as entering the directory of a module you want to update, and
entering <userinput><command>cvs up</command></userinput>. Only the differences
between your copy and the repository are downloaded, so this takes less
bandwidth than running <userinput><command>cvs co</command></userinput>,
as you did before.</para>

<para>It's a good idea to run <userinput><command>cvs
up</command></userinput> before modifying files, since this helps
prevent conflicts (see below).</para>

<para>Running <userinput><command>cvs up</command></userinput> produces a lot of
output. Most of it consists of a letter followed by a filename. The
meanings of the most common letters are:
<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term><computeroutput>P</computeroutput></term>
<listitem><para>The file has been updated to the latest version in the
repository. Only the difference between your last copy and the latest
version (a patch) was sent.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><computeroutput>U</computeroutput></term>
<listitem><para>The file has been updated to the latest version in the
repository, but a patch wasn't available, so the whole file was
sent. This usually means that the file is new since your last update.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><computeroutput>M</computeroutput></term>
<listitem><para>The file is modified in your private copy. This means
you have made changes that haven't yet been committed to the repository.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><computeroutput>C</computeroutput></term>
<listitem><para>There were changes in both your private copy and the
repository, and they conflicted with one another. See <xref
linkend="svn-managing-conflicts" /> for more information.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

There are other letters which might appear: for more information, see
the CVS <command>info</command> page.</para>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="svn-committing">
<title><command>cvs commit</command>: Making your changes
available</title>
<para>Once you have made changes to your private copy of the
documentation, you can add these changes to the repository with the
<command>cvs commit</command> command. Run <userinput><command>cvs
commit <replaceable>file...</replaceable></command></userinput> where
<replaceable>file...</replaceable> is a list of all the files that you
have modified. You will be presented with an editor (the one set in your
<envar>EDITOR</envar> environment variable) in which you should enter a
brief log message describing the changes you've made.</para>
<para>In the log file you can use <userinput>CCMAIL:<replaceable>email
address</replaceable></userinput> to automatically send a copy of the
log message to <replaceable>email address</replaceable>. If the change
is a small one (for example, correcting a small number of typos), you
can add CVS_SILENT to the log message. This will allow easier filtering
for those who read the mailing list to which log messages are sent.</para>

<para>Write something about binary files.</para>
<para>Mention adding new files.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="svn-managing-conflicts">
<title>Managing Conflicts and Other Problems</title>
<para>CVS will try to automatically handle merging two sets of changes
to a file. For example, take this situation:
<orderedlist>
<listitem><para>You and another writer are both working on a file, <filename>index.docbook</filename>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The other writer makes changes to the first half of the file and
commits them to the CVS repository.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>You make changes to the <emphasis>second</emphasis> half of the
file, but do not commit them (yet).</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</para>

<para>Now, if you run <userinput><command>cvs up</command></userinput>,
<command>cvs</command> will add the changes from the other writer to
your private copy, while leaving your changes in the file.</para>

<para>This works fine if two writers have made changes to different
parts of the file, but if you make changes to the same part of the file,
<command>cvs</command> cannot tell which changes should take
precedence. It will therefore mark your file as having conflicts (shown
with a <computeroutput>C</computeroutput> in the output of
<userinput><command>cvs up</command></userinput>), and place markers in
the file showing both your version and the version of the other
writer. You must then read through the file and edit it to contain only
the more appropriate of the two versions.</para>

<para>Another common problem is that you get errors about <quote>sticky
tags</quote> when trying to commit a file. If this happens, run
<userinput><command>cvs up -A</command></userinput> and commit again.</para>
</sect2>


</sect1>

-->

<sect1 id="working-with-others">
<title>Working With Other Documenters and Developers</title>

<para>One important and fun part of working on &tde; is the community of
other developers who you work with. The people you'll work with most
often as a documentation writer are the documentation team, the quality
team (if you're a new contributor) and the maintainer of the application
that you're working on.</para>

<para>The documentation team is your main resource for help with doc
writing and a central point of contact to ensure that everyone's work is
co-ordinated. The main ways to contact the documentation team are via
the <email>kde-doc-english@kde.org</email> mailing list and on
<acronym>IRC</acronym> in the fkde-docs channel on the server
<systemitem class="domainname">irc.freenode.net</systemitem>. If you
plan to work on a particular application, please tell us, so that we can
ensure that no-one else is working on it simultaneously, so that effort
would be duplicated. Also, feel free to contact us with any problems or
questions you might have about writing documentation. You don't need to
feel like you're working entirely on your own &ndash; there are plenty
of people who are able to help.</para>

<para>The &tde; Quality Team provides  more broad support. If you have
any general questions about &tde; development, or how documentation fits
into the wider &tde; environment, the Quality Team mailing list is a
good place to ask: <email>kde-quality@kde.org</email>. If you're not
sure whether to ask a question on the kde-quality or kde-doc-english
list, just pick one and ask. Many people who read one list read the
other, and you'll be pointed to the appropriate list if
necessary.</para>

<para>Working with programmers is a little less formal. The usual reason
to contact a programmer is to ask about a feature or behavior of an
application that you're documenting. To find the appropriate person to
contact for a particular application, look in the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Help</guimenu> <guimenuitem>About
<replaceable>KApp</replaceable></guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item for
the maintainer. If you can't find a maintainer, ask on
<email>kde-doc-english@kde.org</email> or
<email>kde-devel@kde.org</email>. If asking on the kde-devel list,
mention that you're writing the documentation for that application
&ndash; it helps to identify you to those reading a busy list. In
general, programmers and other developers are happy to help, and willing
to work with you, so don't feel afraid of asking them for information,
and building up a working relationship.</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="updating-documentation">
<title>Updating Documentation</title>

<para>With the pace of change of &tde; applications, documentation can
rapidly become out-of-sync with the application it is describing. To
keep its value, documentation needs to be updated. Often this is simply
a case of reading the existing documentation, and checking each
description of an item against the latest version of the
application. For example, are there new items in the menus that are not
described in the documentation?</para>

<para>Sometimes, more extensive updates are needed. If new features of
the application significantly change the way it works, then new sections
of the documentation may be needed, or reorganization of the existing
content might be necessary. In particularly severe cases, an entire
rewrite might be necessary.</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="licenses">
<title>Licenses for &tde; Documentation</title>

<para>&tde; uses the <acronym>FDL</acronym> (Free Documentation License) for
all documentation.  This license has several variants, some of which place
restrictions on how content is used in other contexts.</para>

<para>The specific terms we use are:</para>

<literallayout>Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
Texts.</literallayout>

<para>This is the only version of the license that is safe to use for
documentation that is to be distributed with &tde;.</para>

<para>The items that may differ in other uses of the <acronym>FDL</acronym>
are as follows:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>with no Invariant Sections</term>
<listitem>
<para>Invariant sections are, as you might expect, sections that
<emphasis>must not</emphasis> be altered in any reproduction of the content.
The reasoning behind this, is so nobody can make a subjective claim, and
attribute it to you, by altering your words.</para>

<para>For instance, if you say <quote>Foo is a terrible piece of
software</quote> and the section is marked invariant, the developers of
<quote>Foo</quote> can not take your writing, change it to say <quote>Foo is
a great piece of software</quote> and still attribute that opinion to
you.</para>

<para>For many people, this restriction is incompatible with the
<acronym>GPL</acronym> and therefore some distributions choose not to
include any user manuals that contain <quote>Invariant Sections</quote>.
Since they must be reproduced verbatim, this also means we are not able
to reuse such content in our own manuals, without including this
statement.</para>

<para>For this reason, <quote>Invariant Sections</quote> are not permitted
in documentation that is to be distributed with &tde;, nor can we safely
reuse content from other sources, if they include Invariant Sections.</para>

<para>It is not normally appropriate to write opinion pieces in &tde;
documentation. Such content should be restricted to your own website, or
documentation that is not distributed with &tde;, so the fact we outlaw
<quote>Invariant Sections</quote> in &tde; documentation is not normally a
problem.  If you think you have a special case, please raise it with the
documentation team, and understand that including such sections may prevent
some distributions adding your manual (or the software itself) to their
distribution.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>with Front-Cover Texts <replaceable>names of
sections</replaceable></term><term>with Back-Cover Texts <replaceable>names
of sections</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>As with <quote>Invariant Sections</quote>, these are texts that may
not be altered, and must be included in any reuse of any of the content.  It
also means we would have to alter our license to match that of the content
we have reused.  This leads to similar problems as that of the
<quote>Invariant Sections</quote>.</para>

<para>This one mainly comes up if we want to use <acronym>FDL</acronym>
content found from other sources (for instance, books or websites.)  In
these cases, the best approach is to ask the authors to permit relicensing,
and offer to include their front/back cover texts anyway, but without having
to change our license terms.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<warning> 
<para>The terms of the <acronym>FDL</acronym> as used by &tde;
documentation, are entirely <acronym>GPL</acronym> compatible, and do
not restrict the reuse of the content.  Any deviation from these terms,
or any change in license could restrict distribution of your software or
documentation, and should only be undertaken with full knowledge of the
consequences, and with written permission of all copyright
holders.</para>
</warning>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="bugs-kde-org">
<title>Using bugs.kde.org</title>
<para>Note how we use b.k.o (general to-do items). Also point to Carlos'
guide on quality.k.o</para>

<para>The &tde; bug tracking system, located at <ulink
url="http://bugs.kde.org">http://bugs.kde.org</ulink>, is now part of
the documentation team's toolkit. Issues with the &tde; documentation
can be filed in the <quote>docs</quote>
product of the bug tracker. Incorrect or outdated content, missing
content, outdated screenshots and typos are all appropriate reasons to
file bugs.</para>

<para>When filing bugs, especially for incorrect or outdated content, be
specific about what's wrong. For example, if a certain page of a
configuration dialog is incorrectly documented, say which page it is in
the bug report. That way, someone fixing the bug can quickly find the
appropriate part of the application and the documentation, and make the
necessary changes with a minimum of effort.</para>

<para>For more information on using the &tde; bug tracking system, see
<ulink
url="http://quality.kde.org/develop/howto/howtobugs.php">http://quality.kde.org/develop/howto/howtobugs.php</ulink>.</para>

</sect1>

</chapter>

<chapter id="other-tasks">
<title>Leveraging your Newly Acquired Knowledge</title>

<para> After finishing documenting an application,
you can leverage the knowledge you gained in the process and improve
the application's level of quality in other areas. The Quality Team provide
guides on how to perform many of these tasks.</para>

<para><itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><ulink url="http://quality.kde.org/develop/howto/howtodocs.php">
Writing context help and configuration descriptions</ulink>: the handbook
is not the only source of help available for &tde; applications. Context help,
or <emphasis>whatsthis</emphasis> provides invaluable support for users, and
you will find it easy to write, especially after writing the handbook.
Documenting configuration options available through the KConfig framework may
require additional research, but configuration descriptions are often the only
documentation available for configuration options.
<!-- FIXME: Improve wording -->
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><ulink url="http://quality.kde.org/develop/howto/howtoui.php">
Performing usability analysis and tests</ulink>: to document your applications,
you probably tested most of the application functionality in a systematic way.
Please take the time read the guide and report the usability issues and
suggestions that appeared in the process.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><ulink url="http://quality.kde.org/develop/howto/howtopromo.php">
Writing guides and articles about the application</ulink>: promotion is the key
for a successful open source project, as widespread use means
usually more probability of attracting prospect contributors, developers,
documenters, translators, &etc;.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>

</chapter>

<chapter id="credits">
<title>Credits and License</title>
<!-- TRANS:CREDIT_FOR_TRANSLATORS -->

&underFDL;
</chapter>

<appendix id="widget-names">
<title>Widget Names</title>
<para>Steal from (and extend) the <quote>Visual Guide to
&tde;</quote>.</para>

</appendix>




&documentation.index;
</book>

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