[KDE-India] [X-post]: Contributing to KDE-DOCS (long email)

[Roshan]

All,

I should have sent this email way long back, but
couldn't do it. I'll do so anyways, because,
contributions can come in for the next version. 

If you are a newbie, and want to contribute to KDE
Documentation, you could do it in the following way.
This is not "the" /only/ way to do it, but something
that I discovered when I read the blog post at:

http://blog.nixternal.com/2008.05.21/kde-41-documentation-needs-your-help/

I logged on to IRC (now, if you are still clueless
about what IRC is, log on to
http://www.kde.in/index.php/Communicate ) and found
out from nixternal (Richard Johnson) what were the
steps to contribute. I relay them here. 

Though these steps may appear as a very lengthy
procedure, they are not. If you try it (just emulate)
you'll see, it is rather easy. It is just that I have
put each and every step for /anybody/ to follow. 

1. Log on to EBN
[http://www.englishbreakfastnetwork.org/sanitizer/index.php?component=kde-4.x]
(This would be for versions 4.2 or later)

2. The graph on the page shows issues with the
documentation of different applications of kde.
(Applications are categorized based on their
characteristics. E.g. kdegraphics will have Gwenview,
kamera, okular (Multi-format document viewer), kgamma
etc.) 

The number of issues with each of these section is
shown beside the name. 

3. Either randomly or in descending order, choose a
section and click on it. You'll be shown, a similar
page with the applications under a category. 

4. Select a particular application (either randomly or
in descending order i.e. app. with the largest number
of issues) and click on it. 

5. You'll be presented a page which shows different
categories of errors. If you know nothing about
docbook (a XML-like language to create documents, use
by KDE Documentation project) all that you need to do
is look at "No. 5 " section of errors (which are
"Verifying that preferred words of phrases were
used").

As an example, look at the following page:
http://www.englishbreakfastnetwork.org/sanitizer/reports/kde-4.x/kdepim/korganizer/index.html

6. The above example shows the reports of the
sanitizer which indicates, which words / phrases were
supposed to be used in place of ones used in the
document. 

7. You have to correct this: But how do you do it? 

There are two options: 
a. Using subversion (svn) on the command line
b. Using websvn (browsing the web)

Many would agree, the former is easier, but here's my
way of thinking.

For using a. (svn on command line), you'll need to (a)
know svn commands (b) good bandwidth (c) Have commit
rights (#kde-in to know more about svn / commit
rights)

For using b. (websvn) You need to know how to access
folders over web by clicking hyperlinks. 

There could other alternatives, but I could think of
these two. Even though I knew how to checkout the svn,
I chose a quicker way to do thing, and hence, websvn. 

8. So, log on to websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE and click on
the section (here, for example kdepim).

9. When you click on that, you'll be presented with a
page listing more folders. Search for 'doc' folder
within that listing. 

10. You'll be presented with a similar list of all
applications under that category. Click on the
application's folder (here, korganizer)

11. You'll see, a list of files. Search for
index.docbook and click on it. You'll get page showing
revisions of the document. The one at the top is the
latest revision and there's a link to download that
file. 

12. Download that file, make changes using Kate or any
editor you like, according to the one reported by the
sanitizer (link in #5) and save those changes.

13. Next email this changed document it to any one of
the following 
i. nixternal at kubuntu dot org
ii. annma at kde dot org
iii. gaurav dot p dot chaturvedi at gmail dot com (he
recently got an svn account, congratulations!)

Hope, this helps. 


--
http://www.gnu.org.in


      Bollywood, fun, friendship, sports and more. You name it, we have it on http://in.promos.yahoo.com/groups/bestofyahoo/