Difference between revisions of "Documentation Improvement"

Latest revision as of 11:57, 25 April 2024

These instructions describe the process to update or extend the Tutorial & Concepts Guide and the Manual. Finally they should consist of:

A: Technical Reference: Manual, former Help

B.1: didactical Tutorial

B.2: task oriented Guide

with each chapter in a separate file.

Small Changes: You can try Simple Pull Request for small changes like fixing typos. It requires only a web browser.

If you are interested in translating the documentation, you should also read Documentation Translation.

For coordination of changes see Documentation Schedule.

Note: The instructions below have been adapted for the documentation related to GnuCash 5.0 or more recent. This includes the stable branch in git at the time of this writing.^[1] If you are looking for instructions to improve older documentation releases, please refer to an older version of this page.

Preface and Introduction — What to expect

The documentation update process uses the same software management tools that are used for updating the program itself. This ensures that changes are made consistently and reliably. This includes using a version control system (VCS) to coordinate contributions from disparate sources, as well as using DocBook, a semantic markup language for technical documentation based on eXtended Markup Language (XML) for the actual edits. It also requires contributors to check their contributions for compatibility by compiling the documentation before final submission.

These aspects require that documentation contributors learn and use several specialized tools to engage the process.

The tools and the process are outlined in this page. For background on these tools, see Build Tools.

Any changes you make will be inserted into local copies of the source documentation files and subsequently transferred to the main documentation set. These source files use a special markup in DocBook to provide structure. Later in the process, the DocBook files are converted to other versions (HTML, PDF, etc.) for viewing. As a documentation support person, your task is to shepherd your modifications through all stages from start to finish.

At each stage, you must validate your changes to assure that they are both valid and have the intended effect, and you must address any errors or unexpected changes that are found.

Since your changes will be carried out by software, there is a difference determination process that identifies exactly what and where changes will be made. This process permits you to be sure that only what you intend will actually be installed. After your changes have been validated locally, you will submit your changes to the project either through a "patch," or by a git "pull request" (both of which will be explained later).

For quality control, any changes you submit will be reviewed by a developer before your changes become official. If everything is accepted without requiring further work, your changes will be applied to the main set of documentation by a developer and you will be notified of that action.

The above brief description outlines the general documentation update process.

It may be helpful to become familiar with the references given in the REFERENCES section below.

Setting Up Your System

To begin changing the documentation, you will need to set up your system with the proper software.

Required Software

The recent details are in Requirements in the README file. But here it is probably better explained: You will need the following software:

Version Control System: To manage your changes of the source text, you will install Git.
Build System: To check and install your version with make commands CMake is used.

You can now edit text or add/update images. That will require:

Editing Text

To edit the source files, you will need to have a plain text editor. Any text editor will do, as long as it can save your files without extra markup. But some editors or IDEs offer Syntaxhighlighting and perhaps other specific tools for Docbook or at least XML.

Illustrations

To illustrate your text with Screenshots and Images, you can use for

Diagrams

any SVG able drawing program like OfficeDraw (available from LibreOffice or OpenOffice),

Screenshots

Creation

the built-in PrintScreen of your OS or desktop environment,

Manipulation

Our script util/adjust-dpi.sh uses the following programs

identify—and in other instructions convert: from ImageMagick, a nice toolset to manipulate images or query their parameters,
awk: from gawk,
bc: from bc,

but the later two are in most cases already installed.

Maintenance

OptiPNG should be run once on new png files, also in stylesheets.

Finally to control the resulting output:

html: any web browser—This is the minimum requirement.
docbook: Gnome's help browser Yelp—This is desired.; Alternatively Kde's help browser KHelpcenter can be used.
PDF: any PDF viewer—This is recommended.
epub, mobi: calibre can display these mobile formats.

Initial Steps

You can start by following instructions in Initializing Documentation Build Environment to create a recommended base directory structure with the source files in place and ready to be edited.

You likely will also follow these steps to install a few additional tools:

To check your changes, you will use the make utility to compile the documentation locally.

See The Make Utility for more on using and installing make.

To test the linkages between GnuCash and help files in Linux, see Test Documentation in Linux.

The Documentation Change Process

To write GnuCash documentation the following steps must be completed in the order given. When executing any command listed, do not use quotations of any sort around the commands.

N.B.: The instructions below are for a non-committer preparing a patch. If you have commit privileges in the gnucash-docs repository, the git commands you use will be somewhat different. Please see Git. If you're not familiar with using git, you'll find more details on basic commands and links to documentation there as well. You may prefer one of the many Git GUIs to the command-line instructions here, especially if you use Microsoft Windows.

Create a Place to Attach and Discuss Your Changes

This can be

an (existing or new) enhancement request "bug" in Bugzilla to discuss the theory like constrains and other relations;
for collaborative work like collecting of relations a wiki page foo-draft can be the better choice.
finally a pull request (PR) on github.

Note the bug or PR number and title: You will be listed as wanting to be notified any time there is an update to the bug. You can monitor it until it is confirmed and applied.; Ideally you would reuse type, number and title in you commit messages.

Update Your Local Copy

Since others could be making changes to the documentation at the same time you are, the GnuCash documentation process employs git to coordinate the disparate contributions. Git ensures that your changes and those of any others are incorporated efficiently into one final set of source files. See Git to learn about using git. This section assumes that you have already obtained a clone of the GnuCash repository, as outlined in Setting Up Your System.

Before you begin editing, you must make sure that your local copy is up to date and aligns with the GnuCash repository by following the instructions at An Introduction to Git.

Identify Location for Changes

GnuCash stores documentation in one master sequence, but reformats the information in different ways for different platforms. When you build the documentation, you create a copy in final format. To make changes, you need to edit the local repository files, not the build directory files. Once you have located the correct source files, you must identify the passages that need to be changed. Your changes should roughly follow the GNOME Documentation Style Guide of the GNOME Documentation Project.

Read the documentation carefully to find exactly where your change belongs.

The English Manual source Docbook files are in

$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/src/C/manual

The English Tutorial and Concepts Guide source Docbook files are in

$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/src/C/guide

The non-english files are in the corresponding locations with C replaced by a 2 character language code.

It may be useful to have either a printed copy or a PDF copy [3] of the documentation available for reference. The PDF is often useful, because it allows using FIND (ctrl-F) to search for key words. This can be important to assure yourself that you have covered the existing places in the documentation where the issue you are interested in has already had a mention or treatment.

Draft Your Changes

If your changes are few and easily formulated, you should be able to make your changes directly in the source Docbook files.

If your changes are more extensive, you may find it helpful to develop your ideas in a separate temporary text file. If you use this approach, you will need to insert your changes into the Docbook file(s) affected. Doing this might be easier by using a specific XML Editor. Additional resources for XML are listed in the References section for this step.

Note: Remember to edit the source files in the repository directories, not in the build directories. The various make commands (run from the build directories), will copy the files from the repository to the build directories.

The source documents are saved in the XML flavour of DocBook code, so all changes need to follow those formatting rules. DocBook enforces strict rules about tags and markup, so be sure to make your changes fit the XML tags in the manner of the existing documentation.

Note: It is not necessary to use comments to denote the start or end of your source modifications. The version control system is used to track changes.

Conventions

You can find a complete reference to DocBook in The Definitive Guide. Search for II. Reference for the complete alphabetical list.
But for beginners the element lists grouped by their function Chapter 2: Creating DocBook Documents is better. Ignore the confusing first part of the page and search for Logical Divisions.
Elements of the graphical user interface (GUI) should have the respective markup e.g.for a label: <guilabel>Accounts</guilabel>. A incomplete list of gui elements:

accel, guibutton, guiicon, guimenu, guimenuitem, guisubmenu, keycap, keycode, keycombo, keysym, menuchoice, mousebutton, shortcut.
Notes: Most of the GUI elements should now already be defined as entities —see below— in the gui-*.dtd files.; See DocBook Guide for other details like meaning and syntax.

Entities

are the global abbreviations in DocBook and should be used wherever possible. They are usually defined in the form

<!ENTITY appname "GnuCash">

in a DTD and used in the source docs like

<title>&appname; Documentation</title>

There are several levels of definitions:

W3C

usually part of the package docbook-dtd contain already entities for many special symbols like mathematical or typographical…

Select them from the detailed lists XML Entity Definitions for Characters (3rd Edition) and

use unified alphabetical list at W3C to avoid overwriting.

Note: Whe prefer docbook tags like <quote>text</quote> over hardcoding in entities “text”. The tag is easier to read and less localization work.

Gnucash-docs: Our main DTD gnc-docbookx.dtd got some modularization. We separated GUI elements in a language agnostic gui-struct.dtd and siblings for each language like gui-C.dtd or its translation gui-<language>.dtd.

File inclusion

Since GnuCash 3.3 the documents use XInclude

<xi:include href="ch_Intro.docbook" />

instead of system entities like

 <!ENTITY SYSTEM ...>

and most other <!ENTITY ...> elements moved into the new Document Type Definition (DTD) gnucash-docs/docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd and its siblings in the same folder.

Now each file needs a header like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE book SYSTEM "gnc-docbookx.dtd">

to be syntactical correct and find the entities. Note that instead of book it can also be any other type like chapter, appendix …

ID attributes

Many elements can contain an inside of the document unique id="chapter-more-specific-context" attribute. This will serve as target for any links — internal or for #Telling the Program of a New Help Context. So each element, which is referenced from inside or outside (GnuCash's Help context) requires one. That includes also elements, for which lists are generated in some target formats: Tables, Figures, ...

Additional they can be used to name the pages of the html output: Getting_Started.html might look nicer than pt01.html.

Conventions

Lowercase, hyphenated terms, where the first stands for the chapter.

Command to grep current definitions

From the top source directory run

grep -inrF "id=" --include="*.docbook" --include="*.po" --exclude-dir=".git" C/manual/

to get the list from the english manual. The pattern "*.po" is currently only required for Italian. '--exclude-dir=".git"' is usually only recommended for the top source directory.

Commands to grep current internal references

From the top source directory run

# the usual way
grep -inrF "linkend=" --include="*.docbook" --include="*.po" C/manual/
# some are behind URLs like https://code.gnucash.org/docs/
grep -inrF "url=" --include="*.docbook" --include="*.po" C/manual/
# Other dependencies: xinclude's href and imagedata fileref
grep -inrF "ref=" --include="*.docbook" --include="*.po" C/manual/

Titles

Avoid leading articles as they look ugly in the display of links. Titles should be unique, because the <book> has exactly one List of Tables, a List of Figures …, which are visible in HTML, pdf …. One possibility to get consistent entries is the additional use of the element titleabbrev. For example, the representation of

<titleabbrev>Account Tree - File-Menu</titleabbrev>

in the List of Tables is more readable and looks better than

<title>Account Tree - File-Menu - Access to file, account operations and printing</title>

There are more in Docbook Conventions.

Note

Most markups are ignored inside title elements, but you can still

<quote>multiword terms</quote>

Linking

Examples

Tip

If you do not plan to replace the URL by another text, use the short form

<link url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL"/>

instead of

<link url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL</link>

The result is the same.

URLs

Because they will be used in several translations, put them as entities in docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd to allow an easier update, if they change. The previous example would become

docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd:

<!ENTITY url-wp-en "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/">  <!-- Append the desired topic -->

and in your text:

More details in <link url="&url-wp-en;URL"/>.

resulting in

More details in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL

Textual Conventions

Do not use vague formulations: Instead of "Previous versions [...]" use "Until version X.Y[.Z] [...]". But as the current docs are no archive, the text body should describe the current version of Gnucash. On important changes add a footnote "Before version x.y it was …" to wake up experienced users to register the change.

Adding or Removing Files

If you are adding or deleting files from the documentation you will need to announce it to several parts of the system to ensure that these new or deleted files get handled properly.

What to do exactly depends on the file type you are adding or deleting.

Additional Docbook Files

New chapters or an appendix are typically added as Docbook files. It requires three changes

The documents base file (i.e., guide/index.docbook or manual/index.docbook). This file includes
```
<xi:include href="type_Name.docbook" />
```
declarations for each source file in the documentation. You must edit this XInclude list to reflect the changes you have made to the file list, where
- type should be either ch[apter] or app[endix],
- Name describing its content.
Tell the build system about the change. You do this by inserting the name of your added file to or removing the name of your deleted file from the entities list in CMakeLists.txt located in the same folder as the base file.
Note

There are CMakeLists.txt files in each of the language folders as well as in the base documentation folder. Make sure you edit the proper copy--that is, the copy in the specific language folder you have edited.

Tell Git to add/remove the file to/from the repository:

git add ${LOCALE}/${MODULE}/${FILENAME} # ${LOCALE}={C|de|it...}; ${MODULE}={guide|manual}; ${FILENAME}=file to add
git rm ${LOCALE}/${MODULE}/${FILENAME} # to remove it - also from your filesystem! See 'git help rm' for other options.

Note: If your update adds new modules to the full set of documentation, you should review all modules in the directory in which you are working ($HOME/code/gnucash-docs/src/C/manual or $HOME/code/gnucash-docs/src/C/guide) to determine what changes, if any, need to be made to modules outside your original assessment.

Additional images

Images can appear anywhere in the documentation as appropriate. They also require three modifications

The base file (i.e., index.docbook) or any of the other Docbook files that form the full document. Images typically are included in Docbook nodes similar to

<figure id="fig-fil-imp-match" pgwide="1">
  <title>The Generic Transaction Import Matcher Window</title>
  <screenshot id="ImportMatcherScreenShot">
    <mediaobject>
      <imageobject role="html">
        <imagedata fileref="figures/Import_Transaction_matcher_1.png"
          srccredit="David Cousens" width="&img-w;"/>
      </imageobject>

      <imageobject role="fo">
        <imagedata fileref="figures/Import_Transaction_matcher_1.png"
          srccredit="David Cousens"/>
      </imageobject>

      <caption>
        The import transaction matcher window after opening a file to import
      </caption>
    </mediaobject>
  </screenshot>
</figure>

Add or remove a similar block for your the image you wish to add or remove—details in #Screenshots And Other Images.

Tell the build system about the change. You do this by inserting the name of your added file to or removing the name of your deleted file from the figures list in CMakeLists.txt located in the same folder as the base file.
Note

There are CMakeLists.txt files in each of the language folders as well as in the base documentation folder. Make sure you edit the proper one --that is, the copy in the specific language folder you have edited.

Tell Git to add/remove the file to/from the repository:

git add ${LOCALE}/${MODULE}/figures/${FILENAME} # ${LOCALE}={C|de|it...}; ${MODULE}={guide|manual}; ${FILENAME}=image to add
git rm ${LOCALE}/${MODULE}/figures/${FILENAME} # to remove it - also from your filesystem! See 'git help rm' for other options.

Telling the Program of a New Help Context

In gnucash/gnome-utils/gnc-ui.h are 2 important sections:

Help Files:

/** Documentation references ****************************************/
:
#    define DF_GUIDE         "gnucash-guide"
#    define DF_MANUAL        "gnucash-manual"
:

Links in the Help Files (id):

/** Links in the Manual *********************************************/
#define DL_USAGE             "usage"
:

Ask a developer to

add your chapter, section, table or whatever id to the list and
use it together with its DF_* as help context in gnc_gnome_help(file_name, anchor) or where else it is associated GUI elements.

Fixme: Ways to find the ids generally in the code sources?

Validate Your Changes

Formal Checks

This checks are mandatory.

xmllint

The program xmllint is used to test that your Docbook file has no syntax errors or incorrect references to internal sections. It is part of the package libxml.

Tip: Some XML aware editors have a builtin Validate command to run xmllint direct on the currently opened file and jump to the first error.

make check

For your convenience the build system comes with built-in rules to run xmllint. It is run by executing make [something-]check in the top level build directory. Depending on the [something-] part in that command one or more documents will be checked.

For example, if you had downloaded the documentation files to a directory called $HOME/code/gnucash-docs and created a build directory called $HOME/code/gnucash-docs/build:

To validate one or more documents, first go to the top level build directory
```
cd $HOME/code/gnucash-docs/build
```
From there to validate
- all the guide Docbook files for the C (English) language:
```
make C-guide-check
```
- all the guide and manual Docbook files for the C (English) language:
  make C-check
- all the guide and manual Docbook files:
```
make check
```

So generally the check parameter to make is of the form <language>-<document>-check. You can omit <document>- or <language>-<document>- to widen the scope of the check.

Tip: You can list all the check targets by make help | grep check

Note: xmllint works by loading the main index.docbook file of the current document's directory together with all other Docbook files referenced in this main file and then checks all the files.

xmllint output

If your module(s) are free of syntax errors, then the command returns no errors or warnings (if running in a terminal) or an empty file (if redirecting output to a file).
If there are any errors, fix them and repeat this step until no errors are found.
If you are unable to fix an error, ask either using IRC or, see Mailing_Lists, on gnucash-devel.

Appearance Check: make pdf

Tip

After passing make check it is a good idea to also run

make <language>-<document>-pdf

The xsltproc command used there is stricter than make check with the current settings. It will

warn if it finds unresolved ID references and
abort if a table row has more columns than declared.

Completeness Check: After Adding, Moving or Deleting Files

Verify a tarball

can be built

cd ${BUILDDIR} # Adjust this
make distcheck

contains your new files.

After success you can remove gnucash-docs-5.9.tar.gz from your ${BUILDDIR} again.

Content Checks

Context

Because we make more and more use of XRefs, we have to provide the jumping reader with enough context. Either get the list of xrefs

grep -inrF '<xref' C/manual/*.docbook

or

# Get the list of id's in your working area, e.g.
grep -inrF 'id=' de/manual/ch_Tools_Assistants.docbook
# For each id get the links, e.g.
grep -inrF 'linkend="finance-quote-scheduler"' de/manual/*.docbook

and check that it is understandable.

Ensure Only Expected Changes Have Been Made

You should double check that there are no accidental changes to the documentation.

The following command when run in the src directory will show any changes to unstaged files:

git diff

Git status (also run in the src directory) will list all files with differences to the last commit, in categories staged, unstaged, and unknown to git but not matching an ignore pattern.

git status

Proofreading

After you have tested the integrity of the source files using xmllint (make check) and have verified that the difference file shows the correct changes, it depends on your OS/installed software, how to proceed

Not very fast, but simple under Linux

run Gnucash after installing your version of the documentation:

Install and run your version

cd ${BUILDDIR} # adjust this
# 'sudo' is not required, if you configured CMake to install into your home directory:
sudo make install
gnucash
#choose a component from the Help menu

This is also the preferred method to test the context sensitive help.

Fast under Linux

Kde's KHelpcenter and Gnome's help viewer yelp can both display docbook documents:

LANG=$LANG XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS yelp help:gnucash-manual
# or
LANG=$LANG XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS khelpcenter help:gnucash-manual
# Note 1: Relace $PREFIX by that which you used in your CMake configuration.
# 2. If you store 'export XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS' in ~/.bash.rc, it will be set on each login and you can omit it here,
# 3: gnucash-manual for the manual can be replaced with gnucash-guide to view the <q>tutorial and concepts guide</q>.

These at first sight complicated commands combine temporarily setting two environment variables (LANG and XDG_DATA_DIRS) with the actual commands (yelp or khelpcenter). Both the LANG=... and XDG_DATA_DIRS=... may be omitted under certain conditions as explained below. If you do need them, you should replace $LANG and/or $PREFIX as explained further below.

LANG

If your shell runs in the same language as the document you want to show you can omit this part, and the commands will become

XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS yelp help:gnucash-manual
# or
XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS khelpcenter help:gnucash-manual

Otherwise, replace $LANG with the proper language code (C, de, pt, ...)

XDG_DATA_DIRS

contains a list of directories in which to look for (among others) documentation bundles. Depending on which set of built/installed documentation you want to test you may or may not have to set this environment variable. In general if the existing XDG_DATA_DIRS list of directories contains the $PREFIX/share directory that contains your set of documentation under test, you can omit the XDG_DATA_DIRS part of the command above and hence it would become:

LANG=$LANG yelp help:gnucash-manual
# or
LANG=$LANG khelpcenter help:gnucash-manual

For completeness if both XDG_DATA_DIRS and LANG are already correct, you can omit both:

yelp help:gnucash-manual
# or
khelpcenter help:gnucash-manual

To clarify what the $PREFIX/share can be:

If you want to test the documentation as generated in your build directory, $PREFIX should be the path to your build directory (referred to as ${BUILDDIR} in these instructions)
If you want to test the documentation after installation (that is after having run sudo make install), something should be whatever you set as CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX when you first ran cmake.
If you didn't set CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX, sudo make install will install the documentation in a default location (/usr/local/share). In this case you can omit the XDG_DATA_DIRS part from the commands
If you don't want to specify the XDG_DATA_DIRS part each time you run the command, you can also add your preferred documentation path (as explained above either in your build directory or in a non-default install location) permanently to the XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable. You can do so by adding this to your $HOME/.bashrc file:
```
# Integrate my documentation test directory
export XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:${XDG_DATA_DIRS}
# Be sure to replace $PREFIX according to the guidelines earlier in this section
```

In HTML and Other Formats

The easiest way to check your changes is to view the HTML version in your browser. You should also review other formats as they have their own peculiarities:

If you are using non-latin writing, are the fonts right in pdf?
Are images displayed correctly?
Is the page layout OK in ebooks?

The Guide or Manual must be recreated in HTML and the results examined in your browser to verify that the online version appears and reads as expected.

Build the Guide or Manual document in HTML. Use any of the make commands below in a terminal, to generate (part) of the documentation in a chosen language and format:

cd ${BUILDDIR} # adjust this

# In any of the commands below, replace html with pdf, epub or mobi to build that other format
# In the following commands you can replace C (which stands for English) with any other language code we have a guide or manual for

# to build both guide and manual in all languages in html:
make html
# or to build both the guide and manual in English
make C-html
# or to build only the guide in English
make C-guide-html
# or to build only the manual in English
make C-manual-html

The above make command will run xsltproc and use an XSL stylesheet (.../xsl/general-customization.xsl) to turn the raw input XML into the output HTML that comprises the online version of the Guide or Manual.

The built html files with be placed in an automatically created directory, which if using the example directories will be:

$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/build/share/doc/<language>/gnucash-{guide|manual}

Review the results in your browser. Calibre is a good choice as viewer for ebook formats (epub, mobi, ...).

If you need to make changes, do so, then check, rebuild and review again. It's amazing how errors which are obscure in XML--everything is obscure in XML--become blindingly obvious when rendered in the browser. Look for spelling errors, formatting oddness, incomplete tags, and missing or incorrect entities.

To view the results in a web browser, in a file manager (or for Windows: Windows Explorer/File Explorer) double click on either:

$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/build/share/doc/C/gnucash-manual/index.html
# or
$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/build/share/doc/C/gnucash-guide/index.html

Publish your Authorship

Main file gnucash-{guide|manual}.xml
1. <bookinfo> section
  contains the metadata, which can also be shown as About from the documents start page. Verrify the first (=recent) <copyright> entry.
2. <preface id="authors"> section
  1. contains a alphabetical <author> list,
  2. translations also a <othercredit role="translator"> list.
Insert your name into the file AUTHORS. Create a separate patch for this change and ask to apply this patch also on gnucash/DOCUMENTERS - in the respective branches. The AUTHORS file can usually be shown in the packet manager while gnucash/DOCUMENTERS is shown in GnuCashs About->Credits->Documenters

Todo: At some point the maintainer should simplify this.

Tell Git about New, Modified, Moved or Renamed and Removed Files

Git automatically tracks changes to files it knows are part of the repository. However, if you have added any files that should be included in your commit (Docbook or others, for example, illustrations), add (stage) them with the command:

 git add path/to/file

Reminder: Do not add files from your build directory structure.

Here is another way to check your changes. Unless you're a programmer, you're probably not well practiced at examining diffs. If you have touched several files, the first thing to check is

 git status -uno

The -uno tells it to show only the repository files affected by your changes; all of the build products are ignored. Of course, if you've made a new file, that's ignored too, so make sure that all of the files you worked on and only those files are in the list. You can add new files with

 git add path/to/new-file

and revert files that you didn't mean to change with

 git checkout path/to/ignored-file

Commit Your Changes

Once you're satisfied with your changes, it's time to commit them.

You can commit everything that's been changed with

 git commit -a

(-a also causes git to notice and commit any deleted files)

or you can commit a few files at a time with

git add path/to/file1 [path/to/file2 …]
git commit

If you need to make further changes, you can update your commit instead of creating a new one with

git commit -a --amend

But --amend should only be used as long, as you did not publish your commit by pushing it to some public github repository.

Exception

Only on your own, still open pull requests you are allowed to use either

Improvement:
```
git commit -a --amend
git push -f
```
Rebase your branch:
```
git rebase …
git push -f
```

There are even finer-grained ways to pick out bits and pieces to group into a commit, but they're beyond the scope of this tutorial.

When you make a commit git will open a screen editor; which one depends on how you set your environment. The default on most Unixes is vi, but you can select a different one with the $EDITOR environment variable. Use the editor to make a good commit message. It should have a one-line (< 80 character) summary followed by a blank line, and a brief description of the change and its motivation. Don't get carried away here: If you need more than a couple of lines it should have been a smaller change.

The release announcement is generated from the commit messages, so include any information that should be passed on. You could even say This needs to be mentioned in the release announcement followed by the text you want in the announcement.

To add extra information to a previously pushed commit message, make some trivial change to a comment and write a commit message using the same subject line as the previous commit.

If required, you can check committed changes to a particular file with

git log -p path/to/file

Create a Pull Request or a Patch

Once you have finalized your changes, you will notify the developer team of your changes, either by creating a —recommend— pull request, or —less desired— by creating and uploading a patch.

After Merge: Verification

To avoid surprises after the release, you should verify one day after the merge of your pull request the nightly build:

All

browse https://code.gnucash.org/docs/

Flatpak users

See Flatpak for how to enable the nightlies and update them.

Then run

flatpak run --command=sh org.gnucash.GnuCash
yelp

If you watch

I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd
/app/share/help/de/gnucash-manual/Help_ch_Transactions.docbook:3171: parser error : Entity 'ndash' not defined
                &ndash; Importieren als eine neue Buchung. Manueller Eingriff er
                       ^
$

or similar, and can not fix it, inform the flatpak maintainers.

Windows users

See Windows for how to enable the nightlies and update them.

Start the Program and open the docs from the help menu.

References to Supporting Technologies Used

[1] https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Bugzilla

[2] https://github.com

[3] http://www.jedit.org/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook

[5] https://www.docbook.org/ DocBook: The Definitive Guide

Some Distributions have it as a package named like docbook-tdg.

DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide of its processing

[6] https://www.tldp.org/LDP/LDP-Author-Guide/html/tools-edit.html

[7] https://www.netlingo.com/tips/html-code-cheat-sheet.php

[8] https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Git

Tutorials at w3schools.com about XML, XSLT, DTD, …

Additional Information

Screenshots And Other Images

Desktop Themes for Screenshots

Try to maintain consistency with existing images by using specific themes for your desktop environment.

Most current images are still from the GnuCash-2 series, where we used the Clearlooks engine, which has been the default theme of GNOME 2 since version 2.12.

So for GnuCash3+ we should use Gnome3's default theme "Adwaita".

If you are not on Linux, try to find a similar theme for your desktop.

If you customized your desktop or are using a different environment,

create ideally a Linux VM with a Vanilla Gnome Desktop

or at least create a separate user like Gnucash User or similar—ideally one per language/region.

In theory you could also adjust the settings per session but practical you will find after days one detail you had forgotten to set properly in a serie of images.

start a Gnome session for that user;

if you are not translating, but documenting in US English, you should use the default LANG=C with one exception:

As the US date format is confusing to almost all other readers, start GnuCash and set in

Edit->Preferences->Numbers, Date and Time->Date Format: ISO

Don't forget to reset them both before you continue to translate.

Image Formats

Screenshots

are ideally submitted in PNG format.

Related data files

Iif you are working on the docs, special on the guide, read data/README and store your data files in an appropriate subdirectory.

Tip

Before capturing: Shrink the window size to the minimum to get the best result. If text gets truncated, file a bug against the GUI.; Consider also to shrink columns of tables inside to the minimum without loosing content.; That way you can reduce downscaling of bigger GUI elements resulting in unreadable small text.
While capturing

Often you can avoid cropping by selecting Scope: Active Window
Hold down the Alt keys because GTK3 else hides the accelerator markings _.

Graphics showing relations

are best as SVG. That would allow translators to replace in their copy the labels with their translation.

Callouts

images with annotations – are ideally created in GIMP's .xfc format with the

screenshot^[2]: on the lowest level and
each label: on a separate level. That will allow you or translators to edit, move or resize the labels.

Translators can replace the screenshot and translate the labels. Finally add it in

xfc: for future maintenance, translation creation … and
png format: to use in the docs

to the repo and link the png in the text.

Icons

are used in all project components: Program, Bundles, Documentation and Website. Best practises still need to be written.

Indexing

To add your image to the List of Figures at the start of the Manual or Tutorial and Concepts Guide, put your screenshot in a figure tag, for example:

  <figure pgwide="1">
    <title>This text will appear as header and in the List of Figures</title>
    <screenshot>
      <screeninfo>640x480</screeninfo>
      <mediaobject>
        <!-- insert the imageobjects here -->
        <caption><para>Optionally you can here add a longer description than in the title.
          If not required, remove the caption element.</para>
        </caption>
      </mediaobject>
    </screenshot>
  </figure>

screeninfo

Information about how and at what resolution a screen shot was produced, when it was produced, and by whom. We found this in 2022 and need to discuss our preferred content. Perhaps it is a good place to store the size here instead of running identify on each time the info is needed.

textobject

Older parts have mistakenly a <textobject> instead of a figure title or a <caption>. For now move the content into the adequate tag. Only if you want to support

blind people using a screenreader and
users of Text-based web browsers

add a precise description of the image as textobject.

Displaying pictures side by side: If you want to display pictures next to each other, they can be positioned in a small table with a single table line and two column. This solution is suitable if the images to be displayed have comparable dimensions, preferably the same height.; Please note that the parameter "width" for the image size must be set to 100%. This value refers to the size of the table cell and fits the image completely into the cell.

Finally check your entry in the index context

Build the html flavour and open its Table of Content. That is currently

share/doc/C/gnucash-guide/index.html

share/doc/C/gnucash-manual/index.html

Scroll down to List of Figures. Is it

unique and
descriptive?

Display and Print Targets

Gnucash 4.10 change

The original instructions talked about 510px wide, but images of that width are too narrow on modern large screens. Because on a "Full HD" monitor the normal page wide in yelp seems to be >=800 px this is the new default stored in docbook/gnc-docbookx.

Older documents require a review of their <imageobject>s: If the width is

≤ 800 px: remove width=&img-w; and—if it references the same file—the fo object;
else: verify that the fo object has no width in px.

To get a list see the Tip below.

Still unresolved

Sometimes

images are indented as part of a list element or
we want to display 2 images side by side.

How can we tell that adjust-dpi.sh …?

Screenshots and images added to the GnuCash documentation must fit two purposes: video display by Gnome's Yelp or other browsers like Firefox and paper printing (pdf creation). Each has its own way of determining width:

video display: defines image width limits in terms of pixels, while
print output: sets limits on image size based on a ratio of image size and the image's dots per inch (dpi).

Because we do not want to shrink the image itself, but want to limit the width of

image presentations on screen to 800 px,

and 14 cm on paper, we get 2 different cases for our entry:

width <= 800 px

and insert:

      <imageobject>
        <imagedata fileref="figures/Report_Screen.png"
                   srccredit="your name" />
      </imageobject>

imagedata attributes

format: like format="PNG"is only required, if the filename extension is unknown by the processor. Please remove obsolete instances!; See also: docbookxsl GraphicSelection, docbookxsl GraphicFormats
width, depth: If the viewport area (width|depth) is specified, but no content area (contentwidth|contentdepth), docbook sets scalefit=1 resulting in zooming the image to viewportsize.

width > 800 px

Use two <imageobject> tags, as shown below:

      <imageobject role="html">
        <imagedata fileref="figures/Help_Pref_AccntPeriod.png"
                   srccredit="your name" width="&img-w;" />
      </imageobject>
      <imageobject role="fo">
        <imagedata fileref="figures/Help_Pref_AccntPeriod.png"
                   srccredit="your name" />
      </imageobject>

imageobject attributes

role: "html" refers to display presentation on screens (the width is limited to 800 px), while; "fo" processor (FOP) prepares it for printing of pdf

Now the image will fit on display and we can continue to adjust it for printing.

Adjusting an Image's Dots Per Inch

You must take another step to prepare a screenshot for print output: you must set the dots per inch (dpi) correctly. The dpi defines an image's dot density, and thus its overall quality; the higher the dpi, the better the printed image quality. The printing size, dpi and image pixel dimensions are in this relation:

size = pixels / dpi

So if you have a screenshot that is 800x560 pixels with a dpi of 80 you will have the screenshot in the pdf output displayed as 800/80 x 560/80 inches = 10 x 7 inches = 25 x 17.5 cm. (1 inch is about 2.5 cm). The available space in the A4 format pdf output is a maximum of about 15 cm, so you can resize the screenshot by changing its dpi (Note that the US Letter size paper is slightly wider than A4, so images scaled for A4 will also fit on US Letter size paper). Normally if you take a screenshot when the GnuCash window is almost at its minimum, the dpi will be set to 144, which for our example screenshot will result in a print size of:

800/144 x 560/144 inches = 14 x 10 cm

This will stay inside the available areas.

If the screenshot you are going to add to documentation is wider than 850 pixels, you should increase the dpi above 144 so that its printed size remains less than 15 cm.

Tip

To query the properties of the existing images you can use Imagemagicks identify command:

# for many details of one file:
identify -verbose $FILENAME

# or important infos about all files in the current directory:
echo "Size [px] and Resolution of all files in the current directory:";
for i in *.png; do identify -format "%w x %h %x x %y %U %f\n" $i; done;

# or to create a list of the images width:
touch width.lst;
for i in *.png; do identify -format "%w %f\n"  $i >> width.lst; done;
# Output sorted descending by width, useful on changes of &img-w;:
clear; sort -nr width.lst;
# or by name, useful on review of text:
clear; sort -k2 width.lst

The % parameters are explained in ImageMagick's doc package.

Individual

The dpi of an image be changed in one of two ways:

Open the screenshot in an image editor (like The Gimp) and select Image->Print Size. In the dialog that opens, set the X and Y resolution to the desired dpi (check that the unit value is set to the desired value - normally pixels/in). Press "Ok" and save the image.
A faster approach uses Imagemagick, a library for image manipulation. From a terminal window, issue the following command:
```
convert -units PixelsPerInch -density DPI IN OUT
```

where DPI is the desired dpi value (e.g. 144), IN is the input image filename and OUT the output filename (that could be the same as IN).

All at once

New Method

For your convenience the bash script adjust-dpi.sh has been included in the gnucash-docs repository that automatically calculates and assigns the right value of dpi to a list of png files. It is stored in the util subdirectory of the repository. To use it open a command line and run the script from the proper figures directory. For example:

cd pt/guide/figures            # In the source directory (repo), NOT the build directory structure
../../../util/adjust-dpi.sh

If that fails i.e. because dependencies are missing on your computer, you can still use the old method.

Old Method

To convert the dpi of a bunch of images do this from a terminal window:

for i in *.png; do convert -units PixelsPerInch -density 144 "$i" "$i"; done

This applies a dpi of 144 to all images of the current directory.

Optimize the Compression

The tool OptiPNG tries to minimize the size of png files lossless:

cd pt/guide/figures            # In the source directory (repo), NOT the build directory structure
optipng ${FILENAME}            # <- One file or all:
for i in *.png; do optipng $i; done

If it is too hard for you, ask the developers in your pull enhancement request to do it for you.

Maintenance

In this section are collected all the standards used to work on documentation.

Content Updates

Coders often forget to update the docs after changing the program behaviour or appearance. Sometimes users collect then updated rules here in this wiki. So, if you review a section of the docs, compare it

with the recent program,
also with related wiki pages for updates.

After your changes were published you should ideally also replace the wiki content by a link to the doc section to avoid redundancy.

Text conventions

Style: Consider targets like Writing Documentation for an International Audience.

Short declarative sentences are the best style.
Parentheses should be used as little as possible.
Use proper terminology of

Gnucash

You can

browse or download the glossary at Weblate in several formats,
view its source gnc-glossary.txt at GitHub as CSV file

Language_Administration#Glossary describes its maintenance, adding new languages …

Translators should also consult their current program translation <LANGUAGE>.po in https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/blob/stable/po/

GUI elements

GNOME Human Interface Guidelines and

Recommended Terminology (2.32)

There are variable definitions, ENTITY in docbook terminology, in the GnuCash specific extension of the DocBook DTD, which must be used:

e.g. for future changes to revision numbers, docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd defines variable vers-stable

<!ENTITY vers-stable "5.9">

and guide/appendixa.docbook uses this variable like

The process works on &vers-stable; datafiles, and ought to ...

Use the same indentation as existing parts, i.e. indent each level of <tag>s by 2 spaces. Avoid the use of tabulators as their wide is not really defined and so the display of tabs varies depending on the editor, github, ...
Common markups - refinement in progress:

block

Components

chapter-like elements and many sections: should start with

<title>…</title>
<abstract>Purpose and overview</abstract> or
<highlights>…</highlights>

. In some cases you should also consider to use <task>.

<task>

<tasksummary>…
<taskprerequisites>…
<procedure>…
<taskrelated>…

offers a good structure e.g. for tutorial lessons and the steps in assistants;

<procedure>

is better than <orderedlist>:

<procedure><title>An Example Procedure</title>
<step>
  <para>
    A Step
  </para>
</step>
<step>
  <para>
    Another Step with substeps:
  </para>
  <substeps>
    <step>
      <para>
        Substeps can be nested indefinitely deep.
      </para>
    </step>
  </substeps>
</step>
<step>
  <para>
    A Final Step
  </para>
</step>
</procedure>

;

<glosslist> ^[3]

for

definitions at the begin of a chapter/section and the

descriptions of the gui elements of a dialog like

<glosslist>
  <title>GUI Elements of Dialog Foo</title>
  <glossentry>
    <glossterm>LABEL</glossterm>
      <glossdef>
        <para>The GUI-ELEMENT-TYPE LABEL …
        </para>
      </glossdef>
    </glossentry>
    …
  <glosslist>

in the manual

are better than <itemizedlist>;

<example>: They get listed in the table of content. They get marked like blockquote or procedure with a sidebar. They can not contain tables or figures. So they are more for short texts like a paragraph.

inline

One highlighting makup is usually enough. If an element is already part of <title>, <term>… then additional markups are usually not required.

~~All accounts named must be tagged with <emphasis>: e.g. <emphasis>Expenses:Tax</emphasis>~~

Use <emphasis> only as emphasis.There are more adequate elements for other purposes like:

GUI elements. <guibutton>, <guilabel>, <menuchoice> …
In- and output: <userinput> (also for creating list elements) often combined with <replaceable> and <optional> instead of <some variable> and [optional part …] like we use them in the wiki.; <computeroutput> (also for selection of a list element); <command> is intended for formal descriptions <cmdsynopsis>.
<programlisting>, <screen>: for complexer forms or data files can have a language attribute, which produces at least in yelp syntaxhighlighting. The in docbook known language highlighters are listed in xsl/1.79.2/highlighting^[4]. We specify also languages, which are currently not supported by docbook like csv as info for ourself.

Hyphens and dashes:

See https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/index.html for guidance on using English language punctuation, including – and —. You can also enter AltGr+- and AltGr+Shift+- directly on some keyboards.

To represent a negative number or subtraction:

The typographically correct symbol to use is − (U+2212, −). The ASCII hyphen-minus - (U+002d) is commonly used and is also fine. Whichever you use, be consistent, at least on the whole page.

Examples:

Number negative 1 (−1): −1

Formula GROSS_SALE − TOTALBUY: GROSS_SALE − TOTALBUY

In the current state of this page there are many more. Have a look at the recently reworked chapters. If you have some free time, add them here.

Content Checklist

Some often missed parts:

In which context does it get used and why - hint: why did you develope it?
Under which circumstances should it not be used, if any exist?
Do alternative methods exist?
The meaning of each GUI element should be explained in the related Manual section.
Link related parts.

Graphics conventions

All screenshots of the GnuCash windows should be captured under the GNOME desktop environment with the following settings:

GNOME desktop environment
For GTK3 Adwaita is the default theme. Under GTK2 it was Clearlooks as you can see on older sceenshots. To save toner avoid dark themes!
GTK3: text below icon, before it was besides icon;
font: Sans. 9 point for application and 11 point for window title.
Tip for Linux users

Create a separate user account with above settings. That requires installation of the program for all users.

Notes

If the title of the window is not important, you can set without [window] decoration in your screenshot app. this will probably allow the use of other themes.
As GnuCash normalizes the order of transaction splits (debits before credits), you should capture the screen before finishing the transaction, in case you enter credits first.^[5]

Global Changes

Appying global changes on many files is often faster done with commandline tools than in your default editor.

Use Cases

Apply new entities on existing text and similar tasks.

Examples

In one directory only all docbook files

Drop obsolete format="PNG":

for i in *.docbook; do sed -i 's/ format="PNG"//' $i; done

Escape & of entities in the replacement part as it has a special meaning in sed:

for i in *.docbook; do sed -i 's/510px/\&img-w;/' $i; done

Note

In sed's substitute command \ (backslash) is the escape character to quote characters with a special meaning like . (Catch all), & or in closing tags /.

In all languages, components and all used file types

for l in C de it ja pt ru zh; do
  for c in guide manual; do
    for x in docbook po; do
      for d in $l/$c/*.$x; do sed -i 's/ format="PNG"//' $d; done;
    done;
  done;
done;

Important

Before and after using sed, run grep to verify that you didn't change unintended parts:

clear; grep -in '510' *.docbook

clear cleans the console output to have only the result of the last run.

Help

To see the manual of sed, grep … run

info sed

KDE users can better open info:/grep in konqueror or use khelpcenter.

Windows users might need to install MinGW.

Updating Stylesheets

Sometimes maintainers update the XSL. If you do it, #Optimize the Compression of it's images.

↑ Before version 5.0 stable was named maint and future master. Discussionand Announcement

↑

Caution

make check will send a false warning like

$ make de-manual-check
Note: following images exist but are not referenced in document gnucash-manual(manual):
    - /home/frank/git/gnucash-docs/de/manual/figures/main-window-small.png

because it does not scan xfc files for references.

↑ There is also a global glossary (currently in Guide, but should be moved to Manual)
↑ Docbook-xsl Chapter 27. Program listings: Syntax highlighting
↑ https://bugs.gnucash.orgshow_bug.cgi?id=798143 - Different order of splits in instructions and screenshot

[Git_branches_renamed-1] Before version 5.0 stable was named maint and future master. Discussionand Announcement

[2] 
Caution

make check will send a false warning like
$ make de-manual-check Note: following images exist but are not referenced in document gnucash-manual(manual): - /home/frank/git/gnucash-docs/de/manual/figures/main-window-small.png

because it does not scan xfc files for references.

[3] There is also a global glossary (currently in Guide, but should be moved to Manual)

[4] Docbook-xsl Chapter 27. Program listings: Syntax highlighting

[5] ttps://bugs.gnucash.orgshow_bug.cgi?id=798143 - Different order of splits in instructions and screenshot

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-''These instructions describe the process to change both the GnuCash "Guide"
+[[Category:Documentation Development]]
-and the GnuCash "Help" manuals.''
+These instructions describe the process to update or extend the ''Tutorial & Concepts Guide'' and the ''Manual''. Finally they should consist of:
+:A: Technical Reference: Manual, former Help
+:B.1: didactical Tutorial
+:B.2: task oriented Guide
+with each chapter in a separate file.
-==Preface and Introduction -- What to expect==
+;Small Changes: You can try [[Simple Pull Request]] for small changes like fixing typos. It requires only a web browser.
+If you are interested in translating the documentation, you should also read [[Documentation Translation]].
-The recommendation of experienced programmers who work with code and
+For coordination of changes see [[Documentation Schedule]].
-related documentation is to obtain a copy of the full set of the
-documentation.  Besides having the modules you think you will need to
-change, you will easily be able to update other files, if you discover
-additional places requiring a modification.
-In addition, other persons could be making changes to parts of the
+;Note: The instructions below have been adapted for the documentation related to GnuCash 5.0 or more recent. This includes the <tt>stable</tt> branch in git at the time of this writing.{{Git branchs rename.ref}} If you are looking for instructions to improve older documentation releases, please refer to [https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/index.php?title=Documentation_Improvement&oldid=21341 an older version of this page].
-documentation at the same time you are.  You will need to make sure
-any changes (others have made following your acquiring a set of the
-documentation) are included in what you will install.
-After obtaining your full set of the documentation, you will be
+==Preface and Introduction — What to expect==
-inserting your modifications into the proper places in the set of
-documents.  Modules in the set are formatted using XML.  Later in
-processing, the XML modules are converted to HTML versions for online
-easy viewing.  As a documentation support person, your task is to
-shepherd your enhancements through all stages from start to finish.
-At each stage changes must be validated to assure that intended
+The documentation update process uses the same software management tools that are used for updating the program itself. This ensures that changes are made consistently and reliably. This includes using a [{{URL:wp}}Version_control version control] system (VCS)'' to coordinate contributions from disparate sources, as well as using [{{URL:wp}}DocBook DocBook], a semantic markup language for technical documentation based on ''eXtended Markup Language (XML)'' for the actual edits. It also requires contributors to check their contributions for compatibility by ''compiling'' the documentation before final submission.
-changes occur, and other unexpected changes found are understood and
-either accepted or rejected after proper analysis.
-Since your changes will be carried out by software, there is a
+'''These aspects require that documentation contributors learn and use several specialized tools to engage the process.'''
-difference determination process that identifies exactly what and where
-changes will be made.  This process permits you to be sure that only
-what you intend will actually be installed.
-For the sake of quality control there is a review process that you
+The tools and the process are outlined in this page. For background on these tools, see [[Build_Tools|Build Tools]].
-must use in order to make your change "official".  The above brief
-description when executed results in a file of changes.  These changes
-must be explained as to their purpose.  Accompanying the explanation
-in words is everything that makes up the substance of the change.  The
-term for this is "patch".  Whether you introduce a major restructuring
-or a small tweak, every thing is a "patch".
-Creation of the explanation and the content of the change you are making
+Any changes you make will be inserted into local copies of the source documentation files and subsequently transferred to the main documentation set. These source files use a special markup in DocBook to provide structure. Later in the process, the DocBook files are converted to other versions (HTML, PDF, etc.) for viewing. As a documentation support person, your task is to shepherd your modifications through all stages from start to finish.
-are combined in a bugzilla event, otherwise called a "bug".  In this usage
-bug means a statement of what is changing and why along with the content
-that will be the change when approved and applied to all the places
-needed.  It does not necessarily mean a problem is being corrected.
-After creating your patch and presenting it in a bugzilla bug, you
-inform the developers on their list and ask for their review and
-approval.  Your email should list a brief statement of what your bug
-is about. You also provide the Bugzilla bug ID number so it can be
-found and reviewed easily.
-If everything is accepted without requiring further work, your patch
-will be applied to the main set of documentation by a developer and you
-will be notified of that action.
-As your first act in getting started, become very familiar with the
-references given in the REFERENCES section following the NOTES section
-below.
-==The Documentation Change Process -- What and How it happens==
+At each stage, you must validate your changes to assure that they are both valid and have the intended effect, and you must address any errors or unexpected changes that are found.
-To write GnuCash documentation the following steps must be completed in the order given. [See the NOTES for each step, which are listed after all the steps! Also, when executing any command listed, do not use around the commands quotations of any sort.]
+Since your changes will be carried out by software, there is a difference determination process that identifies exactly what and where changes will be made.  This process permits you to be sure that only what you intend will actually be installed. After your changes have been validated locally, you will submit your changes to the project either through a "patch," or by a git "pull request" (both of which will be explained later).
-# Use this command exactly as written to download to your own computer a full set of documentation files.
+For quality control, any changes you submit will be reviewed by a developer before your changes become official. If everything is accepted without requiring further work, your changes will be applied to the main set of documentation by a developer and you will be notified of that action.
-#:<pre>svn checkout http://svn.gnucash.org/repo/gnucash-docs/trunk gnucash-docs</pre>
-# Find the place in the documentation that you want to change; identify the file(s) that need to be changed to accomplish your documentation objective.
-# Draft your text changes for each module that will be affected by your update.  For substantive changes to the documentation it frequently is helpful to open a text editor and develop your ideas there.  See [4] in the References section for a link to the jEdit text editor, which installs in both Linux and Windows operating systems.  If your changes are minor, you may skip this step and enter your changes directly into the XML modules.
-# Insert your changes into the XML file(s) affected.  Make your changes fit the XML tags in the manner of the existing documentation.  Adjust your XML tag structure so that the finished structure appears properly and as you intended in the HTML version of the documentation.  ''You may have to return to this step should step 7 reveal a less than desirable arrangement of the data.''
-# Validate your xml changes and the file named: “gnucash-guide.xml”.  Use this command in a terminal:
-#:<pre>xmllint –valid –noout gnucash-guide.xml</pre>
-#:Repeatedly perform this step until no xml errors are found. Then move on to the next step.  If you become unable to identify an XML error, then send an email to the developers' list and ask for their help in understanding the error and making a change to remove it.
-# Compare the original and changed documentation using the command below. The command must be executed from within the proper directory ("../guide/C" for the GnuCash Guide and "../help/C" for the GnuCash Help).  Use this command in a terminal:
-#:<pre>svn diff > gc-diffs-this-date</pre>
-#:The result of this command is a file that lists all modules changed and the exact places in the modules where the change(s) occur.  A patch should always be made against the most recent revision of the gnucash-docs project in subversion. In order to make sure your working copy is based on the most recent revision, run svn update (abbreviated, svn up).  This will pull in all changes and patches that have been committed to the gnucash-docs module since you checked out your own working copy from subversion. If those changes don't conflict with your local changes, they will be merged automatically into your local working copy.
-# Build the Guide or Help file in HTML. Use this command exactly as written in a terminal (NOTE: there must be a space following the directory name 'output_html/' in the command below):
-#:<pre>xsltproc -o output_html/ ../../xsl/general-customization.xsl gnucash-guide.xml</pre>
-#:When updating the Help manual, change the above command's file name to be gnucash-help.xml.
-# Create the documentation change as a bugzilla bug:
-#* At this [https://bugzilla.gnome.org/createaccount.cgi] URL, register yourself to create an account.
-#* After your account has been created, Login to the [https://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=GnuCash section of bugzilla reserved for GnuCash].
-#* Enter your userid and password and press 'login'.
-#* After logging in you are at [https://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi this page] and you can start the bug creation process by answering the questions on the page.
-#** In the comment box, explain the nature of the bug fix.
-#** Attach to the bug any supporting files (differences found, new modules (if any), changed modules, and anything else that might be required to explain and support your changes.
-#* When you press commit, bugzilla creates the bug and a unique id for it.
-# Note the bug number.  You will be listed as wanting to be notified any time there is an update to the bug.  Monitor it until it is confirmed and installed to the trunk.
-==NOTES for each of the above steps==
+The above brief description outlines the general documentation update process.
-===Step 1 - svn checkout===
+It may be helpful to become familiar with the references given in the [[Documentation_Update_Instructions#References_to_Supporting_Technologies_Used|REFERENCES]] section below.
-The terminal command will cause the documentation to be copied to your computer under the name you specify in the command.  Executing the command assumes that subversion has previously been installed successfully on your computer.  If the system finds that subversion is not installed, it ignores your request and replies with the correct command to download and install the package.
+==Setting Up Your System==
-:If you need to install svn, make note of the module(s) that it tells you should be deleted.  Also, note the command it provides to delete such module(s).Next install subversion with the install command given.  Note any instructions given during the install process and carry them out.  Finally, use the instruction first noted that tells you what module(s) to remove and carry out the remove instruction.
+To begin changing the documentation, you will need to set up your system with the proper software.
-In the checkout command "gnucash-docs" is the directory name where the
+===Required Software===
-checkout process places the full set of documentation modules.  You can
+The recent details are in ''Requirements'' in the [{{URL:GH}}Gnucash/gnucash-docs/blob/stable/README#L19 README] file. But here it is probably better explained:
-use that name or some other.  I like to include in the directory name
+You will need the following software:
-the date of download, thus: gc-docs-09302010.  Use what is most helpful
+:;Version Control System: To manage your changes of the source text, you will install [[Git]].
-to you.  Remember that the bash shell is case sensitive when typing
+:;Build System: To check and install your version with <tt>make</tt> commands [[CMake]] is used.
-commands and providing names.
+You can now edit text or add/update images. That will require:
+:;Editing Text: To edit the source files, you will need to have a ''plain text editor''. Any text editor will do, as long as it can save your files without extra markup. But some editors or [[:Category:IDE|IDE]]s offer Syntaxhighlighting and perhaps other specific tools for Docbook or at least XML.
+:;Illustrations: To illustrate your text with [[#Screenshots and Images|Screenshots and Images]], you can use  for
+::;Diagrams: any [{{URL:wp}}Scalable_Vector_Graphics SVG] able drawing program like '''OfficeDraw''' (available from [https://www.libreoffice.org/ LibreOffice] or [https://www.openoffice.org/ OpenOffice]),
+::;Screenshots:
+:::;Creation: the built-in <code>PrintScreen</code> of your OS or desktop environment,
+:::;Manipulation: Our script  <tt>util/adjust-dpi.sh</tt> uses the following programs
+::::;<tt>identify</tt>—and in other instructions <tt>convert</tt>: from [https://www.imagemagick.org ImageMagick], a nice toolset to manipulate images or query their parameters,
+::::;<tt>awk</tt>: from '''gawk''',
+::::;<tt>bc</tt>: from '''bc''',
+:::: but the later two are in most cases already installed.
+:::;Maintenance: [http://optipng.sourceforge.net/ OptiPNG] should be run once on new png files, also in stylesheets.
+Finally to control the resulting output:
+:;html: any ''web browser''—This is the ''minimum requirement''.
+:;docbook: ''Gnome'''s help browser <tt>Yelp</tt>—This is desired.
+::Alternatively ''Kde'''s help browser <tt>KHelpcenter</tt> can be used.
+:;PDF: any ''PDF viewer''—This is recommended.
+:;epub, mobi: [https://calibre-ebook.com/ <tt>calibre</tt>] can display these mobile formats.
-By the above svn checkout command you are making changes in a local
+===Initial Steps===
-subversion working copy of the gnucash-docs library of modules.
+You can start by following instructions in [[Initializing_Documentation_Build_Environment|Initializing Documentation Build Environment]] to create a recommended base directory structure with the source files in place and ready to be edited.
-Since you are making changes in a local working copy, subversion
+You likely will also follow these steps to install a few additional tools:
-already keeps track of changes you make. It's just a matter of letting
+* To check your changes, you will use the ''make'' utility to compile the documentation locally.
-subversion output those changes in a easily understood patch format.
+:See [[The_Make_Utility|The Make Utility]] for more on using and installing make.
-For your patch to be useful, the command finding differences (discussed
+* To test the linkages between GnuCash and help files in Linux, see [[Test_Documentation_in_Linux|Test Documentation in Linux]].
-below) should be executed within as large a context as possible.  To be
-sure of that context carry out this command:
-Change directory to the top-level directory of the gnucash-docs project.
+==The Documentation Change Process==
-Using my directory name given above to illustrate: cd gc-docs-09302010.
+To write GnuCash documentation the following steps must be completed in the order given. When executing any command listed, do not use quotations of any sort around the commands.
+'''N.B.:''' The instructions below are for a non-committer preparing a patch. If you have commit privileges in the gnucash-docs repository, the git commands you use will be somewhat different. Please see [[Git]]. If you're not familiar with using git, you'll find more details on basic commands and links to documentation there as well. You may prefer one of the many Git GUIs to the command-line instructions here, especially if you use Microsoft Windows.
+===<span id="CreateBug"></span> Create a Place to Attach and Discuss Your Changes===
+This can be
+* an (existing or new) ''enhancement request'' "bug" in [[Bugzilla]] to discuss the theory like constrains and other relations;
+* for collaborative work like collecting of relations a wiki page <tt>''foo''-draft</tt> can be the better choice.
+* finally a ''[[Setup_for_Pull_Requests|pull request]] (PR)'' on github.
-:<pre>svn checkout</pre> generates a very long listing of modules.  At the end it lists a revision number, e.g., "checked out revision 19612".  The revision number is important for reference.
+;Note the bug or PR number and title:  You will be listed as wanting to be notified any time there is an update to the bug.  You can monitor it until it is confirmed and applied.
+:Ideally you would reuse type, number and title in you commit messages.
-Avoid merge conflicts as much as possible.  Run svn update regularly,
-so repository changes are pulled in frequently and in sizes.
-Reference [1] (in the next section) is a very good introduction to subversion and how to perform basic tasks.
+===<span id="UpdateLocal"></span>Update Your Local Copy===
+Since others could be making changes to the documentation at the same time you are, the GnuCash documentation process employs ''git'' to coordinate the disparate contributions. ''Git'' ensures that your changes and those of any others are incorporated efficiently into one final set of source files. See [[Git]] to learn about using ''git''. ''This section assumes that you have already obtained a clone of the GnuCash repository, as outlined in [[#Setting Up Your System|Setting Up Your System]].''
-===Step 2 - find update location===
+Before you begin editing, you must make sure that your local copy is up to date and aligns with the GnuCash repository by following the instructions at [[An_Introduction_to_Git#Sync_your_local_master_or_maint_from_upstream_.28Pull_Requests.29|An Introduction to Git]].
-This means you have to read the documentation to find exactly where
+===<span id="IDLoc4Change"></span>Identify Location for Changes===
-the error is or the best place to insert the additional information
+GnuCash stores documentation in one master sequence, but reformats the information in different ways for different platforms. When you build the documentation, you create a copy in final format. To make changes, you need to edit the local repository files, not the build directory files. Once you have located the correct source files, you must identify the passages that need to be changed. Your changes should roughly follow the [https://developer.gnome.org/documentation/guidelines/devel-docs.html GNOME Documentation Style Guide] of the [https://wiki.gnome.org/DocumentationProject/ GNOME Documentation Project].
-that improves the understanding of how the feature works or what its
-purpose is in the software.
-Experienced developers instruct that you should focus first on the
+'''Read the documentation carefully to find exactly where your change belongs.'''
-modules in either of these two directories (found in the step 1
-downloaded files): gnucash-docs/help/C or gnucash-docs/guide/C.
-Trying to open each file in each of those directories will show
+The English '''Manual''' source Docbook files are in
-whether there are any errors in the modules you downloaded.  If you
+:$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/src/C/manual
-find errors, ask a more experienced person whether these should first
+The English '''Tutorial and Concepts Guide''' source Docbook files are in
-be corrected before proceeding with your updates.  You can do that
+:$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/src/C/guide
-by email to gnucash-devel@gnucash.org.  If you choose this method, be
+The non-english files are in the corresponding locations with '''C''' replaced by a 2 character language code.
-sure to be a subscriber to that list in order to receive a prompt
-answer.  If you are not a subscriber, then your email will wait for
-the list manager to find  the time to address emails received from
-non-subscribers.
-It will be useful to have either a printed copy or a PDF copy [3] of
+It may be useful to have either a printed copy or a PDF copy [3] of
 the documentation available for reference.  The PDF is often useful,
 because it allows using FIND (ctrl-F) to search for key words.  This
@@ Line 150: / Line 107: @@
 interested in has already had a mention or treatment.
-===Step 3 - draft your update in a text file===
+===<span id="DraftChanges"></span>Draft Your Changes===
+If your changes are few and easily formulated, you should be able to make your changes directly in the source Docbook files.
+If your changes are more extensive, you may find it helpful to develop your ideas in a separate temporary text file. If you use this approach, you will need to insert your changes into the Docbook file(s) affected. Doing this might be easier by using a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_XML_editors specific XML Editor]. Additional resources for XML are listed in the [[#References to Supporting Technologies Used|References]] section for this step.
+Note: Remember to edit the ''source'' files in the ''repository'' directories, not in the ''build'' directories. The various ''make'' commands (run from the build directories), will copy the files from the repository to the build directories.
+The source documents are saved in the XML flavour of [[Glossary#D|DocBook]] code, so all changes need to follow those formatting rules. ''DocBook'' enforces strict rules about tags and markup, so be sure to make your changes fit the XML tags in the manner of the existing documentation.
+;Note: It is ''not'' necessary to use comments to denote the start or end of your source modifications. The version control system is used to track changes.
+====Conventions====
+* You can find a complete reference to DocBook in [{{URL:dbk-tdg}}/docbook.html The Definitive Guide]. Search for <q>II. Reference</q> for the ''complete alphabetical list''.
+* But for beginners the element lists ''grouped by their function'' [{{URL:dbk-tdg}}/ch02.html Chapter 2: Creating DocBook Documents] is better. Ignore the confusing first part of the page and search for <q>Logical Divisions</q>.
+* Elements  of the '''graphical user interface''' (GUI) should have the respective markup e.g.for a label: <syntaxhighlight lang="xml" inline><guilabel>Accounts</guilabel></syntaxhighlight>. A incomplete list of gui elements:
+::accel, guibutton, guiicon, guimenu, guimenuitem, guisubmenu, keycap, keycode, keycombo, keysym, menuchoice, mousebutton, shortcut.
+:;Notes: Most of the GUI elements should now already be defined as ''entities'' —see below— in the <tt>gui-''*''.dtd</tt> files.
+::See [https://tdg.docbook.org/tdg/{{DocbookVersion}}/docbook.html DocBook Guide] for other details like meaning and syntax.
+;Entities: are the <q>global abbreviations</q> in DocBook and ''should be used wherever possible''. They are usually ''defined'' in the form <Syntaxhighlight lang="xml"><!ENTITY appname "GnuCash"></Syntaxhighlight> in a DTD and ''used'' in the source docs like <Syntaxhighlight lang="xml"><title>&appname; Documentation</title></Syntaxhighlight>
+:There are several levels of definitions:
+:;W3C: usually part of the package <tt>docbook-dtd</tt> contain already entities for many special symbols like mathematical or typographical…
+:: '''Select''' them from the detailed lists [https://www.w3.org/2003/entities/2007doc/Overview.html XML Entity Definitions for Characters (3rd Edition)] and
+:: use [https://www.w3.org/2003/entities/2007/w3centities-f.ent unified alphabetical list at W3C] to '''avoid overwriting'''.
+::;Note: Whe prefer docbook tags like <Syntaxhighlight lang="xml" inline><quote>text</quote></Syntaxhighlight> over hardcoding in entities <Syntaxhighlight lang="xml" inline>&ldquo;text&rdquo;</Syntaxhighlight>. The tag is easier to read and less localization work.
+:; Gnucash-docs: Our main DTD <tt>gnc-docbookx.dtd</tt> got some modularization. We separated GUI elements in a language agnostic <tt>gui-struct.dtd</tt> and siblings for each language like <tt>gui-C.dtd</tt> or its translation <tt>gui-<language>.dtd</tt>.
+;File inclusion: ''Since GnuCash 3.3'' the documents use <tt>XInclude</tt> <SyntaxHighlight lang="xml">
+<xi:include href="ch_Intro.docbook" />
+</SyntaxHighlight> instead of <tt>system entities</tt> like <SyntaxHighlight lang="xml"> <!ENTITY SYSTEM ...></SyntaxHighlight> and most other <code><!ENTITY ...></code> elements moved into the new [{{URL:wp}}Document_type_definition Document Type Definition] (DTD) [https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash-docs/blob/stable/docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd gnucash-docs/docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd] and its siblings in the same folder.
+:'''Now''' ''each file'' needs a header like <SyntaxHighlight lang="xml">
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<!DOCTYPE book SYSTEM "gnc-docbookx.dtd">
+</SyntaxHighlight> to be syntactical correct and find the entities. Note that instead of <tt>book</tt> it can also be any other type like <tt>chapter</tt>, <tt>appendix</tt> …
+;ID attributes: Many elements can contain an inside of the document ''unique'' <tt>id="'''chapter'''-more-specific-context"</tt> attribute. This will serve as target for any links — internal or for [[#Telling the Program of a New Help Context]]. So each element, which is referenced from inside or outside (GnuCash's Help context) requires one. That includes also elements, for which ''lists'' are generated in some target formats: Tables, Figures, ...
+:Additional they can be used to name the pages of the html output: <tt>Getting_Started.html</tt> might look nicer than <tt>pt01.html</tt>.
+:;Conventions: Lowercase, hyphenated terms, where the first stands for the chapter.
+:;Command to grep current definitions: From the top source directory run <syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+grep -inrF "id=" --include="*.docbook" --include="*.po" --exclude-dir=".git" C/manual/
+</syntaxhighlight> to get the list from the english manual. The pattern "*.po" is currently only required for Italian. '--exclude-dir=".git"' is usually only recommended for the top source directory.
+:;Commands to grep current internal references: From the top source directory run <syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+# the usual way
+grep -inrF "linkend=" --include="*.docbook" --include="*.po" C/manual/
+# some are behind URLs like https://code.gnucash.org/docs/
+grep -inrF "url=" --include="*.docbook" --include="*.po" C/manual/
+# Other dependencies: xinclude's href and imagedata fileref
+grep -inrF "ref=" --include="*.docbook" --include="*.po" C/manual/
+</syntaxhighlight>
+;Titles: Avoid leading articles as they look ugly in the display of links. Titles should be ''unique'', because the <book> has ''exactly one'' <q>List of Tables</q>, a <q>List of Figures</q> …, which are visible in HTML, pdf …. One possibility to get consistent entries is the additional use of the element <q>titleabbrev</q>. For example, the representation of <syntaxhighlight lang="xml"><titleabbrev>Account Tree - File-Menu</titleabbrev></syntaxhighlight> in the <q>List of Tables</q> is more readable and looks better than <syntaxhighlight lang="xml"><title>Account Tree - File-Menu - Access to file, account operations and printing</title></syntaxhighlight> There are more in [[Docbook Conventions]].
+:;Note: Most markups are ignored inside title elements, but you can still <syntaxhighlight lang="xml"><quote>multiword terms</quote></syntaxhighlight>
+;Linking: [http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/Db5Tools.html#Db5LinkExamples Examples]
+:;Tip: If you do not plan to replace the URL by another text, use the short form <syntaxhighlight lang="xml"><link url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL"/></syntaxhighlight> instead of <syntaxhighlight lang="xml"><link url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL</link></syntaxhighlight> The result is the same.
+;URLs: Because they will be used in several translations, put them as entities in [https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash-docs/blob/stable/docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd#L61 docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd] to allow an easier update, if they change. The previous example would become
+:# docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd: <syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
+<!ENTITY url-wp-en "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/">  <!-- Append the desired topic -->
+</syntaxhighlight>
+:# and in your text: <syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
+More details in <link url="&url-wp-en;URL"/>.
+</syntaxhighlight>
+:resulting in
+::More details in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL]
+;Textual Conventions:
+:;Do not use vague formulations: Instead of "Previous versions [...]" use "Until version X.Y[.Z] [...]". But as the current docs are no archive, the text body should describe the ''current version of Gnucash''. On important changes add a footnote "Before version x.y it was …" to wake up experienced users to register the change.
+====<span id="DraftAddRemove"></span>Adding or Removing Files====
+If you are adding or deleting files from the documentation you will need to announce it to several parts of the system to ensure that these new or deleted files get handled properly.
+What to do exactly depends on the file type you are adding or deleting.
+===== Additional Docbook Files =====
+New chapters or an appendix are typically added as Docbook files. It requires three changes
+# The documents '''base file''' (i.e., ''guide/index.docbook'' or ''manual/index.docbook''). This file includes <SyntaxHighlight lang="xml">
+<xi:include href="type_Name.docbook" />
+</SyntaxHighlight> declarations for each source file in the documentation. You must edit this XInclude list to reflect the changes you have made to the file list, where
+#*type should be either ch[apter] or app[endix],
+#*Name describing its content.
+# Tell the build system about the change. You do this by inserting the name of your added file to or removing the name of your deleted file from the ''entities'' list in '''CMakeLists.txt''' located in the same folder as the ''base file''.
+#;Note: There are CMakeLists.txt files in each of the language folders as well as in the base documentation folder. Make sure you edit the proper copy--that is, the copy in the specific language folder you have edited.
+# Tell [[Git]] to add/remove the file to/from the repository: <SyntaxHighlight lang="sh">
+git add ${LOCALE}/${MODULE}/${FILENAME} # ${LOCALE}={C|de|it...}; ${MODULE}={guide|manual}; ${FILENAME}=file to add
+git rm ${LOCALE}/${MODULE}/${FILENAME} # to remove it - also from your filesystem! See 'git help rm' for other options.
+</SyntaxHighlight>
+;Note: If your update adds new modules to the full set of documentation, you should review all modules in the directory in which you are working (<tt>$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/src/C/manual</tt> or <tt>$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/src/C/guide</tt>) to determine what changes, if any, need to be made to modules outside your original assessment.
+===== Additional images =====
+Images can appear anywhere in the documentation as appropriate. They also require three modifications
+# The '''base file''' (i.e., ''index.docbook'') or any of the other Docbook files that form the full document. Images typically are included in Docbook nodes similar to <SyntaxHighlight lang="xml">
+<figure id="fig-fil-imp-match" pgwide="1">
+  <title>The Generic Transaction Import Matcher Window</title>
+  <screenshot id="ImportMatcherScreenShot">
+    <mediaobject>
+      <imageobject role="html">
+        <imagedata fileref="figures/Import_Transaction_matcher_1.png"
+          srccredit="David Cousens" width="&img-w;"/>
+      </imageobject>
+      <imageobject role="fo">
+        <imagedata fileref="figures/Import_Transaction_matcher_1.png"
+          srccredit="David Cousens"/>
+      </imageobject>
-If your changes are few and easily formulated, then you should be
+      <caption>
-able to skip this step and proceed to [[#Step 4 - place the draft changes in XML files]].
+        The import transaction matcher window after opening a file to import
+      </caption>
+    </mediaobject>
+  </screenshot>
+</figure>
+</SyntaxHighlight>Add or remove a similar block for your the image you wish to add or remove—details in [[#Screenshots And Other Images]].
+# Tell the build system about the change. You do this by inserting the name of your added file to or removing the name of your deleted file from the ''figures'' list in '''CMakeLists.txt''' located ''in the same folder'' as the ''base file''.
+#;Note: There are CMakeLists.txt files in each of the language folders as well as in the base documentation folder. Make sure you edit the proper one --that is, the copy in the specific language folder you have edited.
+# Tell [[Git]] to add/remove the file to/from the repository: <SyntaxHighlight lang="sh">
+git add ${LOCALE}/${MODULE}/figures/${FILENAME} # ${LOCALE}={C|de|it...}; ${MODULE}={guide|manual}; ${FILENAME}=image to add
+git rm ${LOCALE}/${MODULE}/figures/${FILENAME} # to remove it - also from your filesystem! See 'git help rm' for other options.
+</SyntaxHighlight>
-If your update is adding something new or reworking existing text
+==== Telling the Program of a New Help Context ====
-rather extensively, it will be very helpful to translate your ideas
+In [https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/blob/stable/gnucash/gnome-utils/gnc-ui.h gnucash/gnome-utils/gnc-ui.h] are 2 important sections:
-into words by using a text file not part of the existing
+# Help Files: <Syntaxhighlight lang="C">
-documentation as a scratch pad to hone your expression of your ideas.
+/** Documentation references ****************************************/
+:
+#    define DF_GUIDE         "gnucash-guide"
+#    define DF_MANUAL        "gnucash-manual"
+:
+</Syntaxhighlight>
+# Links ''in'' the Help Files ('''id'''): <Syntaxhighlight lang="C">
+/** Links in the Manual *********************************************/
+#define DL_USAGE             "usage"
+:
+</Syntaxhighlight>
-When your ideas are clear and expressed as you think appropriate,
+Ask a developer to
-then proceed to [[#Step 4 - place the draft changes in XML files]].
+# add your chapter, section, table or whatever <code>id</code> to the list and
+# use it together with its <tt>DF_*</tt> as help context in <tt>gnc_gnome_help(file_name, anchor)</tt> or where else it is associated GUI elements.
+;Fixme: Ways to find the ids generally in the code sources?
-===Step 4 - place the draft changes in XML files===
+===<span id="ValidateChanges"></span>Validate Your Changes===
+====Formal Checks====
+This checks are mandatory.
+;xmllint: The program '''xmllint''' is used to test that your Docbook file has no '''syntax errors''' or '''incorrect references''' to internal sections. It is part of the package '''libxml'''.
+:;Tip:Some XML aware editors have a builtin ''Validate'' command to run xmllint direct on the ''currently opened file'' and jump to the first error.
-Because the source documents are saved in XML code, all changes need
+;make check: For your convenience the build system comes with built-in rules to run <tt>xmllint</tt>. It is run by executing '''make [something-]check''' in the top level build directory. Depending on the '''[something-]''' part in that command one or more documents will be checked.
-to be added to the source modules in that manner.   Small changes can
+:For example, if you had downloaded the documentation files to a directory called <tt>$HOME/code/gnucash-docs</tt> and created a build directory called <tt>$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/build</tt>:
-be made directly into the XML file itself.  Larger and extensive
+:#To validate one or more documents, first go to the top level ''build'' directory <SyntaxHighlight lang="sh">
-changes may first be prepared in a text editor and later inserted
+cd $HOME/code/gnucash-docs/build
-into the module(s) in their proper places.  Resources for XML are
+</SyntaxHighlight>
-listed in the References section for this step.
+:#From there to validate
+:#* all the ''guide'' Docbook files for the ''C'' (''English'') language: <SyntaxHighlight lang="sh">
+make C-guide-check
+</SyntaxHighlight>
+:#* all the ''guide and manual'' Docbook files ''for the ''C'' (''English'') language: <SyntaxHighlight lang="sh">
+make C-check
+</SyntaxHighlight>
+:#* ''all the guide and manual'' Docbook files: <SyntaxHighlight lang="sh">
+make check
+</SyntaxHighlight>
+:So generally the check parameter to make is of the form ''<language>-<document>-check''. You can omit ''<document>-'' or ''<language>-<document>-'' to widen the scope of the check.
+:;Tip: You can list all the ''check'' targets by <SyntaxHighlight LANG="sh" inline>
+make help | grep check
+</SyntaxHighlight>
-Review the inserted and corrected text to verify that it is presented
+;Note: xmllint works by loading the main ''index.docbook'' file of the current document's directory together with all other Docbook files referenced in this main file and then checks all the files.
-within the proper XML tags, using existing tags as a guide.  To read
-about XML and its tags, entities, and attributes, see the References
-section for links to resources.
-If text exceeds the vertical text border guides, you should not be
+=====xmllint output=====
-alarmed that text outside the vertical border guides would be lost.
+* If your module(s) are free of syntax errors, then the command returns no errors or warnings (if running in a terminal) or an empty file (if redirecting output to a file).
-These border guides show up when the XML module is opened, but are
+* If there are any errors, fix them and repeat this step until no errors are found.
-length of line indicators and not warnings that text should be moved
+* If you are unable to fix an error, ask either using [[IRC]] or, see [[Mailing_Lists]], on <tt>gnucash-devel</tt>.
-within the guides.
-Apply the modules structural concepts to your own text after you
+====Appearance Check: make pdf====
-have cut and pasted it into the XML file.  This is done by using the
+;Tip: After passing <code>make check</code> it is a good idea to also run <SyntaxHighlight lang="sh">
-various XML tags in the existing text: chapter, segment, sect1, sect
+make <language>-<document>-pdf
-, orderedlist, list item, para (to name just a few) and the
+</SyntaxHighlight>
-corresponding closing tags.  See the references below these step
+:The <tt>xsltproc</tt> command used there is stricter than <SyntaxHighlight lang="sh" inline>make check</SyntaxHighlight> with the current settings. It will
-notes for information about XML and docbook.
+:* '''warn''' if it finds '''unresolved ID reference'''s and
+:* '''abort''' if a table row has more columns than declared.
-;Note: if your update adds new modules to the full set of documentation, you should review all modules in the directory in which you are working (gnucash-docs/help/C or gnucash-docs/guide/C) to determine what changes,if any, need to be made to modules outside your original assessment in step 2.
+====Completeness Check: After Adding, Moving or Deleting Files====
+Verify a tarball
+# can be built <SyntaxHighlight lang="sh">
+cd ${BUILDDIR} # Adjust this
+make distcheck
+</SyntaxHighlight>
+# contains your new files.
+After success you can remove <tt>gnucash-docs-{{Version}}.tar.gz</tt> from your ${BUILDDIR} again.
-===Step 5 - validate xml changes===
+====Content Checks====
+=====Context=====
+Because we make more and more use of XRefs, we have to provide the jumping reader with enough context. Either get the list of xrefs
+<syntaxhighlight lang="sh">grep -inrF '<xref' C/manual/*.docbook</syntaxhighlight> or
+<syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+# Get the list of id's in your working area, e.g.
+grep -inrF 'id=' de/manual/ch_Tools_Assistants.docbook
+# For each id get the links, e.g.
+grep -inrF 'linkend="finance-quote-scheduler"' de/manual/*.docbook
+</syntaxhighlight> and check that it is understandable.
-Execute the 'xmllint' command in a terminal after changing directory
+===<span id="EnsureExpected"></span>Ensure Only Expected Changes Have Been Made===
-to the place where the changed modules are located.  For example, if
+You should double check that there are no accidental changes to the documentation.
-the module you are changing is in the guide/C directory and you had
-downloaded the documentation files to a directory called GC-docs,
+The following command when run in the ''src'' directory will show any changes to unstaged files:
-then you would cd to the directory GC-docs/guide/C.  It is when you
+<SyntaxHighlight lang="sh">
-are inside that directory that you execute the command.
+git diff
+</SyntaxHighlight>
-The file gnucash-guide.xml is found in the C subdirectory of
+Git status (also run in the ''src'' directory) will list all files with differences to the last commit, in categories staged, unstaged, and unknown to git but not matching an ignore pattern.
-GC-docs/guide/C.  Similarly, the file gnucash-help.xml would be in
+<SyntaxHighlight lang="sh">
-GC-docs/help/C.
+git status
+</SyntaxHighlight>
+===<span id="Proofread"></span>Proofreading===
+After you have tested the integrity of the source files using xmllint (make check) and have verified that the
+difference file shows the correct changes, it depends on your OS/installed software, how to proceed
+;Not very fast, but simple under Linux: run Gnucash after ''installing'' your version of the documentation:
+: Install and run your version <Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+cd ${BUILDDIR} # adjust this
+# 'sudo' is not required, if you configured CMake to install into your home directory:
+sudo make install
+gnucash
+#choose a component from the Help menu
+</Syntaxhighlight> This is also the preferred method to test the context sensitive help.
+;Fast under Linux:
+:Kde's ''KHelpcenter'' and Gnome's help viewer ''yelp'' can both display docbook documents: <Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+LANG=$LANG XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS yelp help:gnucash-manual
+# or
+LANG=$LANG XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS khelpcenter help:gnucash-manual
+# Note 1: Relace $PREFIX by that which you used in your CMake configuration.
+# 2. If you store 'export XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS' in ~/.bash.rc, it will be set on each login and you can omit it here,
+# 3: gnucash-manual for the manual can be replaced with gnucash-guide to view the <q>tutorial and concepts guide</q>.
+</Syntaxhighlight>
+:These at first sight complicated commands combine temporarily setting two environment variables (''LANG'' and ''XDG_DATA_DIRS'') with the actual commands (''yelp'' or ''khelpcenter''). Both the LANG=... and XDG_DATA_DIRS=... may be omitted under certain conditions as explained below. If you do need them, you should replace $LANG and/or $PREFIX as explained further below.
+:;LANG: If your shell runs in the same language as the document you want to show you can omit this part, and the commands will become<Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS yelp help:gnucash-manual
+# or
+XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS khelpcenter help:gnucash-manual
+</Syntaxhighlight>Otherwise, replace ''$LANG'' with the proper language code (C, de, pt, ...)
+:;XDG_DATA_DIRS: contains a list of directories in which to look for (among others) documentation bundles. Depending on which set of built/installed documentation you want to test you may or may not have to set this environment variable. In general if the existing XDG_DATA_DIRS list of directories contains the ''$PREFIX/share'' directory that contains your set of documentation under test, you can omit the XDG_DATA_DIRS part of the command above and hence it would become:<Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+LANG=$LANG yelp help:gnucash-manual
+# or
+LANG=$LANG khelpcenter help:gnucash-manual</Syntaxhighlight>For completeness if both XDG_DATA_DIRS and LANG are already correct, you can omit both:<Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+yelp help:gnucash-manual
+# or
+khelpcenter help:gnucash-manual</Syntaxhighlight>To clarify what the ''$PREFIX''/share can be:
+::*If you want to test the documentation as generated in your build directory, ''$PREFIX'' should be the path to your build directory (referred to as ${BUILDDIR} in these instructions)
+::*If you want to test the documentation after installation (that is after having run ''sudo make install''), ''something'' should be whatever you set as ''CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX'' when you first ran cmake.
+::*If you didn't set CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX, ''sudo make install'' will install the documentation in a default location (/usr/local/share). In this case you can omit the XDG_DATA_DIRS part from the commands
+::*If you don't want to specify the XDG_DATA_DIRS part each time you run the command, you can also add your preferred documentation path (as explained above either in your build directory or in a non-default install location) permanently to the XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable. You can do so by adding this to your <tt>$HOME/.bashrc</tt> file:<syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+# Integrate my documentation test directory
+export XDG_DATA_DIRS=$PREFIX/share:${XDG_DATA_DIRS}
+# Be sure to replace $PREFIX according to the guidelines earlier in this section
+</syntaxhighlight>
+====In HTML and Other Formats====
+The easiest way to check your changes is to view the HTML version in your browser. You should also review other formats as they have their own peculiarities:
+* If you are using non-latin writing, are the fonts right in pdf?
+* Are images displayed correctly?
+* Is the page layout OK in ebooks?
+The Guide or Manual must be recreated in HTML and the results
+examined in your browser to verify that the online version appears and reads as expected.
+Build the Guide or Manual document in HTML. Use any of the ''make'' commands below in a terminal, to generate (part) of the documentation in a chosen language and format: <Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+cd ${BUILDDIR} # adjust this
+# In any of the commands below, replace html with pdf, epub or mobi to build that other format
+# In the following commands you can replace C (which stands for English) with any other language code we have a guide or manual for
-If your module(s) are free of XML errors, then the command returns a
+# to build both guide and manual in all languages in html:
-blank screen (if running in a terminal) or a blank file (if
+make html
-redirecting output to a file.
+# or to build both the guide and manual in English
+make C-html
+# or to build only the guide in English
+make C-guide-html
+# or to build only the manual in English
+make C-manual-html
+</Syntaxhighlight>
-XML errors must be removed before completing the remaining steps.  If
+The above ''make'' command will run ''xsltproc'' and use an XSL stylesheet (.../xsl/general-customization.xsl) to turn the raw input XML into the output HTML that comprises the online version of the Guide or Manual.
-you are not able to determine the source of the error, then help
-could be available via the developers list (gnucash-devel@gnucash.org).
-If asking for help, provide as much information as possible, including
-the results of the 'xmllint' command.
-===Step 6 - svn diff===
+The built html files with be placed in an automatically created directory, which if using the example directories will be: <Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/build/share/doc/<language>/gnucash-{guide|manual}
+</Syntaxhighlight>
-The command "svn diff" (below, without quotes) contacts the remote
+Review the results in your browser. [https://calibre-ebook.com/about Calibre] is a good choice as viewer for ebook formats (epub, mobi, ...).
-repository, verifies that the working copy is up to date,  and
-compares the local, working copy to the master repository.
-For the patch to be useful this command should be executed within as
+If you need to make changes, do so, then check, rebuild and review again. It's amazing how errors which are obscure in XML--''everything is obscure in XML''--become blindingly obvious when rendered in the browser. Look for spelling errors, formatting oddness, incomplete tags, and missing or incorrect entities.
-large a context as is appropriate. For that reason,
-:<pre>cd to the top-level directory of the gnucash-docs project.</pre>
+To view the results in a web browser, in a file manager (or for Windows: Windows Explorer/File Explorer) double click on either: <Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/build/share/doc/C/gnucash-manual/index.html
-Then run this command:
+# or
+$HOME/code/gnucash-docs/build/share/doc/C/gnucash-guide/index.html
+</Syntaxhighlight>
-:<pre>svn diff > diffs09262010</pre>
+===<span id="PubAuthor"></span>Publish your Authorship===
-:The command compares all files (in the checked out set of modules to the same modules in the trunk set) for changes.  It then places changes found in a difference file.  A date in the file name helps identify when the changes were made. Names used for the difference file are entirely up to the person making the update.
+#Main file '''<tt>gnucash-</tt>{<tt>guide</tt>|<tt>manual</tt>}<tt>.xml</tt>'''
+## <tt><bookinfo></tt> section
-A patch should always be made against the most recent revision of the
+##: contains the metadata, which can also be shown as ''About'' from the documents start page. Verrify the first (=recent) <copyright> entry.
-gnucash-docs project in subversion.  In order to make sure your working
+## <tt><preface id="authors"></tt> section
-copy is based on the most recent revision, run:
+### contains a alphabetical <tt><author></tt> list,
+### translations also a <tt><othercredit role="translator"></tt> list.
+# Insert your name into the file AUTHORS. Create a separate patch for this change and ask to apply this patch also on gnucash/DOCUMENTERS - in the respective branches. The AUTHORS file can usually be shown in the packet manager while gnucash/DOCUMENTERS is shown in GnuCashs About->Credits->Documenters
+:;Todo: At some point the maintainer should simplify this.
-:<pre>svn update</pre>
+===<span id="AddExtras"></span>Tell Git about New, Modified, Moved or Renamed and Removed Files===
+Git automatically tracks changes to files it knows are part of the repository. However, if you have added any files that should be included in your commit (Docbook or others, for example, illustrations), add (stage) them with the command:
+  git add path/to/file
+;Reminder:  Do '''not''' add files from your ''build'' directory structure.
-:;As a side-note: to avoid merge conflicts as much as possible, it is wise to run "svn up" (svn update) regularly, so repository changes are pulled in frequently and in smaller chunks.
+Here is another way to check your changes. Unless you're a programmer, you're probably not well practiced at examining diffs. If you have touched several files, the first thing to check is
+  git status -uno
-This will pull in all changes and patches that have been committed to
+The <tt>-uno</tt> tells it to show only the repository files affected by your changes; all of the build products are ignored. Of course, if you've made a new file, that's ignored too, so make sure that all of the files you worked on ''and only those files'' are in the list. You can add new files with
-the gnucash-docs module since you checked out your own working copy
+   git add path/to/new-file
-from subversion. If those changes don't conflict with your local
+and revert files that you didn't mean to change with
-changes, they will be merged automatically into your local working
+  git checkout path/to/ignored-file
-copy.  If there are conflicting changes, you will have to figure out
-which changes to keep and which ones to discard. Recently, svn has some
-tools to help you with this. Should conflicts occur, it will ask you
-what to do. See [10] for more information on conflict resolution.
-Once the conflicts are resolved, run
-:<pre>svn status</pre>
+===<span id="CommitChanges"></span>Commit Your Changes===
+Once you're satisfied with your changes, it's time to commit them.
-This will list all files that are different between your local working
+You can commit everything that's been changed with <syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
-copy and the project in subversion.  This can be files that have been
+ git commit -a
-deleted, new files or modified files.  Again, see [1] to understand the
+</syntaxhighlight>
-output of this command.
+:('''-a''' also causes git to notice and commit any ''deleted files'')
+or you can commit a few files at a time with <syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+git add path/to/file1 [path/to/file2 …]
+git commit
+</syntaxhighlight> If you need to make further changes, you can update your commit instead of creating a new one with <syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+git commit -a --amend
+</syntaxhighlight> But <tt>--amend</tt> should only be used as long, as you did not publish your commit by pushing it to some public github repository.
+;Exception: ''Only on your own, still open pull requests'' you are allowed to use either
+:# Improvement: <syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+git commit -a --amend
+git push -f
+</syntaxhighlight>
+:# Rebase your branch: <syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+git rebase …
+git push -f
+</syntaxhighlight>
-A single patch can actually contain all three kinds of changes:
+There are even finer-grained ways to pick out bits and pieces to group into a commit, but they're beyond the scope of this tutorial.
-adding a new file, modifying an existing file, and deleting an existing
-file.  Just make any and all changes you want, "cd" to the top-level
-directory of the gnucash-docs project, and run a
-:<pre>diff -ur > changes.patch</pre>
+When you make a commit git will open a screen editor; which one depends on how you set your environment. The default on most Unixes is ''vi'', but you can select a different one with the $EDITOR environment variable. Use the editor to make a good commit message. It should have a one-line (< 80 character) summary followed by a blank line, and a brief description of the change and its motivation. Don't get carried away here: If you need more than a couple of lines it should have been a smaller change.
-from there.  That will look through all subdirectories for changes and
-integrate everything into a single patch.  For details on the diff
-command, run
-:<pre>man diff</pre>
+The '''release announcement''' is generated from the commit messages, so include any information that should be passed on.
+You could even say ''This needs to be mentioned in the release announcement'' followed by the text you want in the announcement.
-and skim through the options there. You can ignore most of them. Press
-Space to scroll down by a page, and ‘q’ to exit the manual viewer.
-To create a patch, you have to make sure that subversion will consider
+To add extra information to a previously pushed commit message, make some trivial change to a comment and write a commit message using the same subject line as the previous commit.
-your changes for commit.  In practice only files that have status "A"
-(Added), "M" (Modified) or "D" (Deleted) will be taken into account.
-If you see files in the list that you know have changes you want to
-include, but that are not in this state, you should deal with this
-first.
-# Newly created files (the ones in state "?") you wish to include in the patch should first be added via "svn add"
-# Files you removed with a plain "rm" command (the ones in state "!") should be properly removed via "svn rm"
-To create your patch, simply run:
+If required, you can check ''committed'' changes to a particular file with <syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+git log -p path/to/file
+</syntaxhighlight>
-:<pre>svn diff > changes.patch</pre>
+===<span id="PullorPatch"></span>Create a Pull Request or a Patch===
+Once you have finalized your changes, you will notify the developer team of your changes, either by creating a —recommend— [[Git#Pull_Requests|pull request]], or —less desired— by [[Preparing_A_Documentation_Patch|creating and uploading a patch]].
-Note that the "svn diff" command doesn't require you to give file
+===After Merge: Verification===
-names. It will go through your working copy and write a proper patch,
+To avoid surprises after the release, you should verify one day after the merge of your pull request the nightly build:
-containing all new files, deleted files, and file modifications.  If
+;All: browse {{BuildURL}}/docs/
-you wish to be more selective, you can also specify exactly which files
+;Flatpak users: See [[Flatpak]] for how to enable the nightlies and update them.
-you wish to add to the patch like so:
+:Then run <syntaxhighlight lang="sh">flatpak run --command=sh org.gnucash.GnuCash
+yelp
+</syntaxhighlight>
+:If you watch <syntaxhighlight lang="console">
+I/O error : Attempt to load network entity http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd
+/app/share/help/de/gnucash-manual/Help_ch_Transactions.docbook:3171: parser error : Entity 'ndash' not defined
+                &ndash; Importieren als eine neue Buchung. Manueller Eingriff er
+                       ^
+$
+</syntaxhighlight> or similar, and can not fix it, inform the flatpak maintainers.
+;Windows users: See [[Windows]] for how to enable the nightlies and update them.
+:Start the Program and open the docs from the help menu.
-:<pre>svn diff <list-of-files-and-or-directories> > changes.patch</pre>
+==References to Supporting Technologies Used==
-For example:
+:[1] https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Bugzilla
+:[2] https://github.com
+:[3]  http://www.jedit.org/
+:[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook
+:[5] https://www.docbook.org/  DocBook: The Definitive Guide
+:: Some Distributions have it as a package named like ''docbook-tdg''.
+:* [http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide] of its processing
+:[6] https://www.tldp.org/LDP/LDP-Author-Guide/html/tools-edit.html
+:[7] https://www.netlingo.com/tips/html-code-cheat-sheet.php
+:[8] https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Git
+:* [https://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp Tutorials at w3schools.com about XML], XSLT, DTD, …
-:<pre>svn diff guide/C/ch_capgain.xml AUTHORS > changes.patch</pre>
+==Additional Information==
+===Screenshots And Other Images===
-will only include changes to the files guide/C/ch_capgain.xml and the
+====Desktop Themes for Screenshots====
-AUTHORS file into the patch.  Likewise the command:
+:Try to maintain consistency with existing images by using specific themes for your desktop environment.
+:Most current images are still from the GnuCash-2 series, where we used the [https://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=19527 Clearlooks] engine, which has been the default theme of [https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.0/ GNOME 2] since version 2.12.
+:So for GnuCash3+ we should use Gnome3's default theme "Adwaita".
+:If you are not on Linux, try to find a similar theme for your desktop.
+If you customized your desktop or are using a different environment,
+: create ideally a Linux VM with a Vanilla Gnome Desktop
+: or at least create a separate user like <tt>Gnucash User</tt> or similar—ideally one per language/region.
+::In theory you could also adjust the settings per session but practical you will find after days one detail you had forgotten to set properly in a serie of images.
+start a '''Gnome''' session for that user;
+:if you are ''not translating'', but documenting in US English, you should use the default '''LANG=C''' with one exception:
+::As the US date format is confusing to almost all other readers, start GnuCash and set in
+::<tt>Edit->Preferences->Numbers, Date and Time->Date Format:</tt> '''ISO'''
+:*Don't forget to ''reset them both'' before you continue to translate.
-:<pre>svn diff guide > changes.patch</pre>
+====Image Formats====
+;Screenshots: are ideally submitted in [{{URL:wp}}PNG PNG] '''format'''.
-will only include any changes in any file below the guide directory.
+:;Related data files: Iif you are working on the docs, special on the guide, read [{{URL:git}}gnucash-docs/blob/stable/data/README data/README] and store your data files in an appropriate subdirectory.
+:;Tip:
-Finally, XML and HTML don't really care about trailing whitespace.
+::;Before capturing: Shrink the ''window size'' to the minimum to get the best result. If text gets truncated, file a bug against the GUI.
-It's mostly a coding habit to remove them. There are even text editors
+:::Consider also to shrink ''columns of tables inside'' to the minimum without loosing content.
-that do this automatically sometimes. If such a "cleaned up" file is
+:::That way you can reduce downscaling of bigger GUI elements resulting in unreadable small text.
-committed to subversion together with actual code/documentation
+::;While capturing:
-changes, you may have a harder time reading the differences later on.
+:# Often you can '''avoid cropping''' by selecting <tt>Scope: ''Active Window''</tt>
-For example, when you are looking at a Trac difference page, the
+:# Hold down the <code>Alt</code> keys because GTK3 else hides the '''accelerator marking'''s <code>_</code>.
-whitespace changes distract from the actual changes.  That's what is
+;Graphics showing relations: are best as [{{URL:wp}}SVG SVG]. That would allow translators to replace in their copy the labels with their translation.
-meant by "cluttering up the repository".  So being strict in removing
+;Callouts: images with annotations – are ideally created in [{{URL:wp}}GIMP GIMP]'s .xfc format with the
-trailing whitespace is not a matter of proper syntax, but rather a
+:;screenshot<ref>
-matter of making it easier for humans to read changes made.  You are
+;Caution: <tt>make check</tt> will send a false warning like <syntaxhighlight lang="console">
-recommended highly to remove white spaces.
+$ make de-manual-check
+Note: following images exist but are not referenced in document gnucash-manual(manual):
+    - /home/frank/git/gnucash-docs/de/manual/figures/main-window-small.png</syntaxhighlight>
+:because it does not scan xfc files for references.</ref>: on the ''lowest level'' and
+:;each label: on a ''separate level''. That will allow ''you or translators'' to edit, move or resize the labels.
+:'''Translators''' can replace the screenshot and translate the labels. Finally add it in
+::;xfc: for future maintenance, translation creation …  and
+::;png format: to use in the docs
+:to the repo and link the png in the text.
+;Icons: are used in all project components: Program, Bundles, Documentation and Website. Best practises still need to be written.
-For that reason also, pure whitespace fixes should be done in separate
+====Indexing====
-patches from actual changes.  Frequent calls of "svn up" will ease your
+To add your image to the <tt>List of Figures</tt> at the start of the ''Manual'' or ''Tutorial and Concepts Guide'', put your screenshot in a figure tag, for example:
-work.  If you wait too long, you risk conflicts when someone else and
+<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
-you are working on the same file.  Especially if the other person has
+  <figure pgwide="1">
-just committed a patch that you sent in for review, you should run
+    <title>This text will appear as header and in the List of Figures</title>
-"svn update" so your local working copy knows that the patch is now in
+    <screenshot>
-subversion and only new changes should be added to a future patch.
+      <screeninfo>640x480</screeninfo>
+      <mediaobject>
+        <!-- insert the imageobjects here -->
+        <caption><para>Optionally you can here add a longer description than in the title.
+          If not required, remove the caption element.</para>
+        </caption>
+      </mediaobject>
+    </screenshot>
+  </figure>
+</syntaxhighlight>
+:;screeninfo: Information about how and at what resolution a screen shot was produced, when it was produced, and by whom. We found this in 2022 and need to discuss our preferred content. Perhaps it is a good place to store the size here instead of running <tt>identify</tt> on each time the info is needed.
+:;textobject:Older parts have mistakenly a <textobject> instead of a figure title or a <nowiki><caption></nowiki>. For now move the content into the adequate tag. Only if you want to support
+::*blind people using a screenreader and
+::*users of [{{URL:wp}}Text-based_web_browser Text-based web browser]s
+::add a precise description of the image as textobject.
-Other resources available to discern differences and review them are
+; Displaying pictures side by side
-listed in the resources below at items [8] and [9].
+: If you want to display pictures next to each other, they can be positioned in a small table with a single table line and two column. This solution is suitable if the images to be displayed have comparable dimensions, preferably the same height.
+: Please note that the parameter "width" for the image size must be set to 100%. This value refers to the size of the table cell and fits the image completely into the cell.
+;Finally check your entry in the index context: Build the html flavour and open its Table of Content. That is currently
+::share/doc/C/gnucash-guide/index.html
+::share/doc/C/gnucash-manual/index.html
+:Scroll down to <tt>List of Figures</tt>. Is it
+:*unique and
+:*descriptive?
-===Step 7 - build the HTML version of the documentation===
+====Display and Print Targets====
+;Gnucash 4.10 change: The original instructions talked about <q>510px</q> wide, but images of that width are too narrow on modern large screens. Because on a "Full HD" monitor the normal page wide in yelp seems to be >={{Docs img-w}} this is the new default stored in [{{URL:GH}}Gnucash/gnucash-docs/tree/stable/docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd#L82 docbook/gnc-docbookx].
+:* Older documents require a review of their <tt><imageobject></tt>s: If the '''width''' is
+::;&le; {{Docs img-w}}: remove <tt>width=&img-w;</tt> and—if it references the same file—the fo object;
+::;else: verify that the fo object has no width in px.
+::To get a list see the Tip below.
+:;Still unresolved: Sometimes
+::* images are indented as part of a list element or
+::* we want to display 2 images side by side.
+:: How can we tell that <tt>adjust-dpi.sh</tt> …?
+Screenshots and images added to the GnuCash documentation must fit '''two purposes''': ''video display'' by Gnome's Yelp or other browsers like Firefox and ''paper printing'' (pdf creation). Each has its own way of determining width:
+:;video display: defines image width limits in terms of '''pixels''', while
+:;print output: sets limits on image size based on a ratio of image size and the image's ''dots per inch ('''dpi''')''.
+Because we do not want to shrink the image itself, but want to limit the width of
+:image presentations on screen to {{Docs img-w}},
+:and 14 cm on paper, we get 2 different cases for our entry:
+;width <= {{Docs img-w}}: and insert: <syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
+      <imageobject>
+        <imagedata fileref="figures/Report_Screen.png"
+                   srccredit="your name" />
+      </imageobject>
+</syntaxhighlight>
+:;imagedata attributes:
+::;format: like <tt>format="PNG"</tt>is only required, if the filename extension is unknown by the processor. Please remove obsolete instances!
+:::See also: [{{URL:dbk-xsl}}GraphicSelection.html docbookxsl GraphicSelection], [{{URL:dbk-xsl}}GraphicFormats.html docbookxsl GraphicFormats]
+::;width, depth: If the viewport area (''width''|''depth'') is specified, but no content area (''contentwidth''|''contentdepth''), docbook sets ''scalefit=1'' resulting in zooming the image to viewportsize.
+;width > {{Docs img-w}}: Use two <imageobject> tags, as shown below: <syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
+      <imageobject role="html">
+        <imagedata fileref="figures/Help_Pref_AccntPeriod.png"
+                   srccredit="your name" width="&img-w;" />
+      </imageobject>
+      <imageobject role="fo">
+        <imagedata fileref="figures/Help_Pref_AccntPeriod.png"
+                   srccredit="your name" />
+      </imageobject>
+</syntaxhighlight>
+:;imageobject attributes:
+::;role:"'''html'''" refers to ''display'' presentation on screens (the width is limited to {{Docs img-w}}), while
+::: "'''fo'''" processor (FOP) prepares it for ''printing'' of <tt>pdf</tt>
+:Now the image will fit on display and we can continue to adjust it for printing.
-This step means that after XML has been tested for integrity and the
+==== Adjusting an Image's Dots Per Inch ====
-difference file has been determined to contain correct changes and only
+You must take another step to prepare a screenshot for print output: you must set the dots per inch (dpi) correctly. The dpi defines an image's dot density, and thus its overall quality; the higher the dpi, the better the printed image quality. The printing size, dpi and image pixel dimensions are in this relation:
-those, then the Guide must be recreated in HTML and the results
-examined to verify that the online version of the Guide presents an
-appearance and reads as expected.  The command to make this conversion
-is
-:<pre>xsltproc -o output_html/ ../../xsl/general-customization.xsl gnucash-guide.xml</pre>
+ size = pixels / dpi
-:;NOTE: there is a space following 'output_html/ and preceeding '../'
+:So if you have a screenshot that is 800x560 pixels with a dpi of 80 you will have the screenshot in the pdf output displayed as 800/80 x 560/80 inches = 10 x 7 inches = 25 x 17.5 cm. (1 inch is about 2.5 cm). The available space in the A4 format pdf output is a maximum of about 15 cm, so you can resize the screenshot by changing its dpi (Note that the US Letter size paper is slightly wider than A4, so images scaled for A4 will also fit on US Letter size paper). Normally if you take a screenshot when the GnuCash window is almost at its minimum, the dpi will be set to 144, which for our example screenshot will result in a print size of:
-:"output_html" is a directory that will automatically be created and filled with the files the command creates.  The directory name can be anything that makes sense to the person executing the command (output_html or something you choose).
+/144 x 560/144 inches = 14 x 10 cm
-:Note the '/' following the file name 'output_html'.  When that character is in place, the directory (output_html) is created and  HTML modules placed in it.  When not present, the output_html modules are placed in the current directory.  Be sure to retain that '/' in its proper place!.
-:The command segment (“../../xsl/general-customization.xsl”) is a relative path to the XSL stylesheet used to turn the raw input XML into the output HTML that comprises the online version of the Guide. This command segment must be used exactly as written here.
+:This will stay inside the available areas.
-:If your changes involved no images, screenshots, icons, figures of any kind, then you are done at this point.  However, if your work does involve figures of any kind, they will not be viewable in the HTML files created up to this point.  In that case you should run this quick fix in a terminal:
+:If the screenshot you are going to add to documentation is wider than 850 pixels, you should increase the dpi above 144 so that its printed size remains less than 15 cm.
-:<pre>cd output_html
+;Tip: To query the properties of the existing images you can use <tt>Imagemagick</tt>s <tt>identify</tt> command: <syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
-ln -s ../figures
+# for many details of one file:
-ln -s ../../../stylesheet</pre>
+identify -verbose $FILENAME
-:After making this fix, any page containing any figure when reloaded should show the missing figure(s).
+# or important infos about all files in the current directory:
+echo "Size [px] and Resolution of all files in the current directory:";
+for i in *.png; do identify -format "%w x %h %x x %y %U %f\n" $i; done;
-:Once your inspection shows that the online Guide is now acceptable in all respects, you should make certain that the output_html
+# or to create a list of the images width:
-  directory and its contents are not included in any respect in your patch.  To do that, before building the patch, remove the directory by this terminal command:
+touch width.lst;
+for i in *.png; do identify -format "%w %f\n"  $i >> width.lst; done;
+# Output sorted descending by width, useful on changes of &img-w;:
+clear; sort -nr width.lst;
+# or by name, useful on review of text:
+clear; sort -k2 width.lst
+</syntaxhighlight> The <code>%</code> parameters are explained in ImageMagick's doc package.
-:<pre>rm -rf output_html</pre>
+===== Individual =====
+:The dpi of an image be changed in one of two ways:
+:# Open the screenshot in an image editor (like [https://www.gimp.org The Gimp]) and select Image->Print Size. In the dialog that opens, set the X and Y resolution to the desired dpi (check that the unit value is set to the desired value - normally pixels/in). Press "Ok" and save the image.
+:# A faster approach uses Imagemagick, a library for image manipulation. From a terminal window, issue the following command:<syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+convert -units PixelsPerInch -density DPI IN OUT
+</syntaxhighlight>
+:where DPI is the desired dpi value (e.g. 144), IN is the input image filename and OUT the output filename (that could be the same as IN).
-===Step 8 - Create the documentation change as a bugzilla bug===
+===== All at once =====
+====== New Method ======
+:For your convenience the bash script '''adjust-dpi.sh''' has been included in the ''gnucash-docs'' repository that automatically calculates and assigns the right value of dpi to a list of png files. It is stored in the '''util''' subdirectory of the repository. To use it open a command line and run the script from the proper figures directory. For example:
+:<syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+cd pt/guide/figures            # In the source directory (repo), NOT the build directory structure
+../../../util/adjust-dpi.sh
+</syntaxhighlight>
+:If that fails i.e. because [[#Required Software|dependencies]] are missing on your computer, you can still use the old method.
-See resource item [11].
+====== Old Method ======
+:To ''convert the dpi'' of a bunch of images do this from a terminal window:
+:<syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+for i in *.png; do convert -units PixelsPerInch -density 144 "$i" "$i"; done
+</syntaxhighlight>
+:This applies a dpi of 144 to all images of the current directory.
-==References - supporting technologies used==
+==== Optimize the Compression ====
+The tool OptiPNG tries to minimize the size of png files lossless:
+<syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+cd pt/guide/figures            # In the source directory (repo), NOT the build directory structure
+optipng ${FILENAME}            # <- One file or all:
+for i in *.png; do optipng $i; done
+</syntaxhighlight>
+If it is too hard for you, ask the developers in your pull enhancement request to do it for you.
-===Step 1===
+== Maintenance ==
-[1] http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/svn.tour.html
-[2] http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Subversion
-===Step 2===
+In this section are collected all the standards used to work on documentation.
-[3]  http://svn.gnucash.org/docs/guide/
-===Step 3===
+===Content Updates===
-[4]  http://www.jedit.org/
+Coders often forget to update the docs after changing the program behaviour or appearance. Sometimes users collect then updated rules here in this wiki. So, if you review a section of the docs, compare it
+# with the recent program,
-===Step 4===
+# also with related wiki pages for updates.
-[5]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook
-[6]  http://www.tldp.org/LDP/LDP-Author-Guide/html/tools-edit.html
+After your changes were published you should ideally also replace the wiki content by a link to the doc section to avoid redundancy.
-[7]  http://www.netlingo.com/tips/html-code-cheat-sheet.php
+===Text conventions===
+;Style:
+:Consider targets like [{{URL:Gnome-old-sg}}locale.html.en Writing Documentation for an International Audience].
+* Short declarative sentences are the best style.
+* Parentheses should be used as little as possible.
+* Use proper '''terminology''' of
+:; Gnucash: You can
+::* browse or download the ''glossary'' at [{{URL:wl}}/glossary/ Weblate] in several formats,
+::* view its source [{{URL:GH}}Gnucash/gnucash/blob/stable/po/glossary/gnc-glossary.txt gnc-glossary.txt at GitHub] as CSV file
+:: [[Language_Administration#Glossary]] describes its maintenance, adding new languages …
+:: ''Translators'' should also consult their current program translation <tt><LANGUAGE>.po</tt> in {{URL:GH}}Gnucash/gnucash/blob/stable/po/
+:; GUI elements: [{{URL:Gnome-HIG}} GNOME Human Interface Guidelines] and
+::[{{URL:Gnome-old}}wordlist.html Recommended Terminology (2.32)]
+* There are variable definitions, '''ENTITY''' in docbook terminology, in the [{{URL:GH}}Gnucash/gnucash-docs/blob/stable/docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd GnuCash specific extension of the DocBook DTD], which must be used:
+:e.g. for future changes to revision numbers, <tt>docbook/gnc-docbookx.dtd</tt> defines variable '''vers-stable'''
+::<tt><!ENTITY vers-stable "{{Version}}"></tt>
+:and guide/appendixa.docbook uses this variable like
+::<tt>The process works on &vers-stable; datafiles, and ought to ...</tt>
+* Use the same '''indentation''' as existing parts, i.e. indent each level of <tag>s by 2 spaces. Avoid the use of tabulators as their wide is not really defined and so the display of tabs varies depending on the editor, github, ...
+* Common '''markup'''s - refinement in progress:
+:;block:
+::;Components: ''chapter-like'' elements and many sections: should start with <syntaxhighlight lang="xml"><title>…</title>
+<abstract>Purpose and overview</abstract> or
+<highlights>…</highlights>
+</syntaxhighlight>. In some cases you should also consider to use <task>.
+::;<task>: <syntaxhighlight lang="xml"><tasksummary>…
+<taskprerequisites>…
+<procedure>…
+<taskrelated>…
+</syntaxhighlight> offers a good structure e.g. for ''tutorial lessons'' and the ''steps in assistants'';
+::;<procedure>: is better than <orderedlist>: <syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
+<procedure><title>An Example Procedure</title>
+<step>
+  <para>
+    A Step
+  </para>
+</step>
+<step>
+  <para>
+    Another Step with substeps:
+  </para>
+  <substeps>
+    <step>
+      <para>
+        Substeps can be nested indefinitely deep.
+      </para>
+    </step>
+  </substeps>
+</step>
+<step>
+  <para>
+    A Final Step
+  </para>
+</step>
+</procedure>
+</syntaxhighlight>;
+::;<glosslist> <ref>There is also a global glossary (currently in Guide, but should be moved to Manual)</ref>: for
+::: ''definitions'' at the begin of a chapter/section and the
+::: ''descriptions of the gui elements of a dialog'' like <syntaxhighlight lang="xml"><glosslist>
+  <title>GUI Elements of Dialog Foo</title>
+  <glossentry>
+    <glossterm>LABEL</glossterm>
+      <glossdef>
+        <para>The GUI-ELEMENT-TYPE LABEL …
+        </para>
+      </glossdef>
+    </glossentry>
+    …
+  <glosslist>
+</syntaxhighlight> in the manual
+:: are better than <itemizedlist>;
+::;<example>:They get listed in the table of content. They get  marked like blockquote or procedure with a sidebar. They can not contain tables or figures. So they are more for short texts like a paragraph.
+:;inline
+::One highlighting makup is usually enough. If an element is already part of <title>, <term>… then additional markups are usually not required.
+::<s>All '''accounts''' named must be tagged with <emphasis>: e.g. <emphasis>Expenses:Tax</emphasis></s>
+::Use <emphasis> only as emphasis.There are more adequate elements for other purposes like:
+::;GUI elements. <guibutton>, <guilabel>, <menuchoice> …
+::;In- and output: <userinput> (also for creating list elements) often combined with <replaceable> and <optional> instead of <some variable> and [optional part …] like we use them in the wiki.
+:::<computeroutput> (also for selection of a list element)
+:::<command> is intended for formal descriptions <cmdsynopsis>.
+::;<programlisting>, <screen>: for complexer forms or data files can have a language attribute, which produces at least in yelp syntaxhighlighting. The in docbook known language highlighters are listed in [{{URL:GH}}Gnucash/gnucash-docs/blob/stable/xsl/1.79.2/highlighting/xslthl-config.xml#L30-L54 xsl/1.79.2/highlighting]<ref>[http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/SyntaxHighlighting.html Docbook-xsl Chapter 27. Program listings: Syntax highlighting]</ref>. We specify also  languages, which are currently not supported by docbook like <q>csv</q> as info for ourself.
+* '''Hyphens and dashes''':
+: See https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/index.html for guidance on using English language ''punctuation'', including  <tt>&amp;ndash;</tt> and <tt>&amp;mdash;</tt>. You can also enter <code>AltGr</code>+<code>-</code> and <code>AltGr</code>+<code>Shift</code>+<code>-</code> directly on some keyboards.
+: To represent a ''negative number'' or subtraction:
+:: The typographically correct symbol to use is &minus; (U+2212, <tt>&amp;minus;</tt>). The ASCII hyphen-minus - (U+002d) is commonly used and is also fine. Whichever you use, be consistent, at least on the whole page.
+:: Examples:
+::: Number <q>negative 1</q> (&minus;1): <tt>&amp;minus;1</tt>
+::: Formula <q>GROSS_SALE &minus; TOTALBUY</q>: <tt>GROSS_SALE &amp;minus; TOTALBUY</tt>
+* In the current state of this page there are many more. Have a look at the recently reworked chapters. If you have some free time, add them here.
-[8]  http://svn.gnucash.org/trac/timeline
+===Content Checklist===
+Some often missed parts:
+* In which '''context''' does it get used and '''why''' - hint: why did you develope it?
+* Under which circumstances should it '''not be used''', if any exist?
+* Do '''alternative''' methods exist?
+* The '''meaning of each GUI element''' should be explained in the related Manual section.
+* Link '''related''' parts.
-[9]  http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Git
+===Graphics conventions===
+All screenshots of the GnuCash windows should be captured under the GNOME ''desktop environment'' with the following settings:
+* GNOME desktop environment
+* For ''GTK3'' '''Adwaita''' is the default theme. Under ''GTK2'' it was '''Clearlooks''' as you can see on older sceenshots. To save toner avoid dark themes!
+* ''GTK3'': text below icon, before it was besides icon;
+* font: Sans. 9 point for application and 11 point for window title.
+*;Tip for Linux users: Create a ''separate user account'' with above settings. That requires installation of the program for ''all users''.
+;Notes:
+:* If the title of the window is not important, you can set <tt>without [window] decoration</tt> in your screenshot app. this will probably allow the use of other themes.
+:* As GnuCash normalizes the ''order of transaction splits'' (debits before credits), you should capture the screen '''before''' finishing the transaction, in case you enter credits first.<ref>{{BugURL}}show_bug.cgi?id=798143 - Different order of splits in instructions and screenshot</ref>
-===Step 6===
+===Global Changes===
-[10]  http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/svn.tour.cycle.html#svn.tour.cycle.resolve
+Appying global changes on many files is often faster done with commandline tools than in your default editor.
+;Use Cases: Apply new entities on existing text and similar tasks.
+;Examples:
+:;In one directory only all docbook files: Drop obsolete<q> format="PNG"</q>: <Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+for i in *.docbook; do sed -i 's/ format="PNG"//' $i; done
+</Syntaxhighlight>
+::Escape <code>&</code> of entities in the replacement part as it has a special meaning in <tt>sed</tt>: <Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+for i in *.docbook; do sed -i 's/510px/\&img-w;/' $i; done
+</Syntaxhighlight>
+:;Note: In sed's '''s'''ubstitute command <code>\</code> (backslash) is the escape character to quote characters with a special meaning like <code>.</code> (Catch all), <code>&</code> or in closing tags <code>/</code>.
+:;In all languages, components and all used file types: <Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+for l in C de it ja pt ru zh; do
+  for c in guide manual; do
+    for x in docbook po; do
+      for d in $l/$c/*.$x; do sed -i 's/ format="PNG"//' $d; done;
+    done;
+  done;
+done;
+</Syntaxhighlight>
+;Important: Before and after using <tt>sed</tt>, run <tt>grep</tt> to verify that you didn't change unintended parts: <Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+clear; grep -in '510' *.docbook
+</Syntaxhighlight> <tt>clear</tt> cleans the console output to have only the result of the last run.
+;Help: To see the manual of <tt>sed</tt>, <tt>grep</tt> … run <Syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+info sed
+</Syntaxhighlight> KDE users can better open <tt>info:/grep</tt> in <tt>konqueror</tt> or use <tt>khelpcenter</tt>.
+: Windows users might need to install <tt>MinGW</tt>.
-===Step 8===
+===Updating Stylesheets===
-[11]  http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Bugzilla
+Sometimes maintainers update the XSL. If you do it, [[#Optimize the Compression]] of it's images.
+----

Difference between revisions of "Documentation Improvement"

Latest revision as of 11:57, 25 April 2024

Contents

Preface and Introduction — What to expect

Setting Up Your System

Required Software

Initial Steps

The Documentation Change Process

Create a Place to Attach and Discuss Your Changes

Update Your Local Copy

Identify Location for Changes

Draft Your Changes

Conventions

Adding or Removing Files

Additional Docbook Files

Additional images

Telling the Program of a New Help Context

Validate Your Changes

Formal Checks

xmllint output

Appearance Check: make pdf

Completeness Check: After Adding, Moving or Deleting Files

Content Checks

Context

Ensure Only Expected Changes Have Been Made

Proofreading

In HTML and Other Formats

Publish your Authorship

Tell Git about New, Modified, Moved or Renamed and Removed Files

Commit Your Changes

Create a Pull Request or a Patch

After Merge: Verification

References to Supporting Technologies Used

Additional Information

Screenshots And Other Images

Desktop Themes for Screenshots

Image Formats

Indexing

Display and Print Targets

Adjusting an Image's Dots Per Inch

Individual

All at once

New Method

Old Method

Optimize the Compression

Maintenance

Content Updates

Text conventions

Content Checklist

Graphics conventions

Global Changes

Updating Stylesheets

Navigation menu

Search