Re: [PATCH 0/3] Help for GUI

[Jonatan Schlag <jonatan.schlag@ipfire.org>]

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Hi,


16.05.2020, 11:28 -0500 Jon Murphy:
> My opinion: This encourages people to look at the wiki and gets them
> pointed in the right direction.  This is much better than a new user
> firing off a quick question to the Community.  Most anything that is
> encourages people to get interested in IPFire is a good thing.


I do not know if it will encourage people, but if a person wants to
learn to find the starting point for a certain topic, is much easier.



> 
> There are very few people that will read the whole wiki from the
> start (not sure how many wiki pages?).  Especially reading something
> that is technically difficult.

I think nobody requests or requested that everybody have to read the
full wiki. From my experiences, it is just better to read and learn
before doing things. Try and error is also ok, but then nobody should
expecting that somebody helps, when they get into trouble. There is
also a learning effect in finding the solutions on yourself.


I also see your point that people might not read stuff that is
technically
difficult or hard to understand, but sometimes there is no way to avoid
this. Learning new things can be hard and sometimes you have to read.
Even links to the right wiki page will change nothing concerning the
need that some people have to read a lot. The only thing that gets
improved is that people have not to find the right place to start. They
will have to read not more and not less.

> 
> I’ll use myself as an example.  Right now I am trying to learn a
> little about SIP and Asterisks and FreePBX.  I tried reading various
> pages of Asterisks (or FreePBX) and it is over my head.  So I try a
> few things on my Asterisks box, watch a video, read a little, try
> some thing than rinse & repeat.  (And Yes I realize asterisks is not
> the same as IPFire).  
> 
> I did the same with IPFire (and IPCop) many years ago.  It works very
> well for me.
> 
> Anything that makes it super easy to find a way to the wiki is a good
> thing!
> 
> 
> 
> > From: Jon Murphy
> > Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020, 11:10 AM
> > To: development-request(a)lists.ipfire.org, 
> > development(a)lists.ipfire.org
> > Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] Help for GUI
> > 
> > 
> > Oops…  maybe my bad?
> > 
> > 
> > > ------------------------------
> > > 
> > > Message: 3
> > > Date: Sat, 16 May 2020 10:35:00 +0100
> > > From: Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org>
> > > To: Tim FitzGeorge <ipfr(a)tfitzgeorge.me.uk>
> > > Cc: development(a)lists.ipfire.org
> > > Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] Help for GUI
> > > Message-ID: <6390F8AE-998D-489E-A983-1A875E2761F2(a)ipfire.org>
> > > Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=utf-8
> > > 
> > > Hi Tim,
> > > 
> > > Thank you very much for submitting these patches.
> > > 
> > > I am afraid that I must say that I oppose these changes.
> > > 
> > > This has recently been discussed on the community portal and
> > > although I still have not made my mind up entirely, I think this
> > > not helpful to anyone:
> > > 
> > > * We do not have documentation for everything for a start


So a few pages are missing, but from my point of view, it is better to
have a context-sensitive help for 90% of the pages as for 0%.

> > > * There is never this ?just read one sentence and you suddenly
> > > will be an expert? thing this kind of promotes
> > > 
> > > Should we not rather link the wiki somewhere in the footer and
> > > encourage people to start reading the whole thing from the start
> > > before they do something?

I do not think that this promotes this. Maybe, but theses people then
did not understand how things are working. Like written above, the need
to read and also the amount people have to read will not change. When
they do not understand this, I currently have no idea how to solve this
issue.

The real improvement I see here is, that people find the right entry
point to the wiki. They're also people who have a lot of knowledge and
for them, a link to the corresponding wiki site is a usability
improvement. Context-Sensitive Help is a nice feature for all people
who know how to use it. People who know, when they did not understand
the page where they were redirected, that they have to read more. Or
that they have to understand more of the context/technologie/ whatever.

So to sum up what I try to explain:
We should accept features which improving the usability for a lot of
people. We should not drop these features because some people have a
way to learn which does not work. We will not change these people,
whatever we will do. So I vote to accept this improvement, but I still
have some questions left.

@Tim could you send a Screenshot how this will look? I cannot imagine
such things from code

@Michael:
I also like the Idea that the wiki is linked in the footer.
The guys at nextcloud have something like this:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5169868/58201395-fa749000-7ca2-11e9-96de-e0e2dbcb8836.png 

Maybe we could create a website similar and pointing the users to right
directions in the web interface itself?

Greetings Jonatan

> > > 
> > > What is your rationale to implementing this?
> > > 
> > > Best,
> > > -Michael
> > > 
> > > > On 15 May 2020, at 22:39, Tim FitzGeorge <
> > > > ipfr(a)tfitzgeorge.me.uk> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Add per-page help link to GUI.
> > > > The link is extracted from the menu file and added to the menu.
> > > > Currently only implemented for 'ipfire' and 'ipfire-rounded'
> > > > themes.
> > > > 
> > > > Tim FitzGeorge (3):
> > > > Help for GUI - ipfire theme code
> > > > Help for GUI - Help links
> > > > Help for GUI - help link style
> > > > 
> > > > config/menu/10-system.menu                    | 11 +++++++
> > > > config/menu/20-status.menu                    | 13 ++++++++
> > > > config/menu/30-network.menu                   | 20 +++++++++--
> > > > config/menu/40-services.menu                  |  6 ++++
> > > > config/menu/50-firewall.menu                  |  8 ++++-
> > > > config/menu/60-ipfire.menu                    |  1 +
> > > > config/menu/70-log.menu                       | 33
> > > > ++++++++++++-------
> > > > config/menu/EX-apcupsd.menu                   |  1 +
> > > > config/menu/EX-guardian.menu                  |  1 +
> > > > config/menu/EX-mpfire.menu                    |  1 +
> > > > config/menu/EX-samba.menu                     |  1 +
> > > > config/menu/EX-tor.menu                       |  1 +
> > > > config/menu/EX-wlanap.menu                    |  1 +
> > > > html/html/themes/ipfire/include/css/style.css |  8 +++++
> > > > html/html/themes/ipfire/include/functions.pl  | 19 +++++++++--
> > > > 15 files changed, 107 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)
> > > > 
> > > > --
> > > > 2.26.1
> > > >