Top Level Categories

This page is to work on the menu structure for the TopicBasedHelp specification.

• Introduction to Ubuntu (the About Ubuntu document)
• Linux Basics (from the desktop guide, should include information about administrative tasks)
• Moving to Ubuntu (the Switching from Windows/OS X/$distro document, if such exists)
• Adding, Removing and Updating Applications (from the desktop guide)
• Using your Desktop (from the Gnome user guide)
• Desktop Customisation (ditto)
• Music and Video (from the desktop guide)
• Internet (ditto)
• Office (ditto)
• Graphics and Pictures (ditto)
• Games (ditto)
• Programming (ditto)
• Running Server Applications (from the server guide)
• Getting More Help (from the Getting More Help document)
• Contributing to Ubuntu (from the Contribute document)

Naturally each section would be customised to suit the TopicBasedHelp specification, and incorporate reliable material from other sources, such as the wiki.

Comments/Ideas

Just trying to figure out exactly how this would look which I currently can't in my head especially vs current svn layout. Would each section be a separate document in svn or would it just utilize a different flag, such as <article> instead of <book> to separate this?

• MatthewPaulThomas (comments by MatthewEast in italics): At the top level any categorization is competing with a very tempting search field, so we need to work hard on simplification. I suggest:

  • Don't try to link to every help document from here. This is about the system in general, including the file manager (which most people won't recognize as an individual application) and preferences+administration tools (ditto). Help on things like "Games" and "Office" can be accessed from the Help menus of the relevant programs.

    • The help on Games and Office generally involves pointing people towards relevant programs to install...

      • Those sections can and should be a single page each. -- mpt
  • "Introduction to Ubuntu", "Linux Basics", and "Moving to Ubuntu" can be collected under a "New to Ubuntu 7.04?" category.

    • That sounds like it would probably work.

  • "Using your desktop" is not something people will choose to click on (unless they're clicking on everything). There is no good way to handle the Gnome User Guide pre-Mallard, but perhaps the least bad option is to place it under the goal-based categories (separated by a line).

    • How about simply taking bits which we want from the Gnome User Guide and making a "Documents, Files, and Folders" and "Customising your desktop" entries?

      • Good idea. -- mpt
  • "Music and Video" and "Graphics and Pictures" could be merged into "Music, photos, and video". ("How do I get photos off my digital camera?" is a common goal for which you're likely not to know the appropriate application. "How do I draw a picture?" is much less common, and if you want to do that you're likely to find the appropriate applications and their Help menus.)

    • It should be "Graphics and Photos" - the current material includes details such as setting up Graphics Cards, it is difficult to see how that would fit into a "Music, photos and video" section.

      • The "Graphics cards" section is very out of place anyway. It should be under "New to Ubuntu 7.04?", "Troubleshooting", or similar. -- mpt

  • "Programming", "Setting up a ______ server", and maybe even "Contributing to Ubuntu" could be collected under an "Advanced topics" category.

    • I don't think "Advanced topics" is very helpful in describing what is behind that topic. To be honest, while I appreciate the advantage of keeping the list short, I think setting up server applications is a common enough task that it deserves its own space. If people want to use the search they will, but that shouldn't stop us from providing a solid topic-based table of contents.