Purpose of this page is to collect the requirements, which must or should be met in case we want to change the documentation file format (source language). See Bug 722016 - We should change the Documentation file format.

Definitions

Input Format: The source format of the documentation files. Examples are DocBook, reStructuredText (reST) and Markdown. Contributors to the documention would be encouraged to use this format.
Output Format: Formats such as HTML, EPUB or MOBI that are produced by the documention flow.
Documentation Flow: An automated process that takes in documentation source files in a given input format and outputs processed files in various output formats.
MUST, SHOULD, MAY: As defined in RFC 2119.

Output Format Support

The documentation flow...

Final targets

1. Context sensitive Help: requires support of all important OS/desktop dependent help browsers
2. Web display: for referencing or to use search engines
3. Couch Reading: e-Readers and paper

Requirement	Justification	DocBook Support	reST support
MUST support Yelp.	Yelp is a primary HELP view for GNOME.
SHOULD support KHelpCenter.	KHelpCenter is a primary HELP viewer for KDE.
MUST support HTML output.	Required for presentation on GnuCash website.
MUST support EPUB output.	A popular format for tablets and e-readers.
SHOULD support CHM output.
MUST support PDF output.	Many people like to read long-form documentation in PDF.

All tools used in the documentation flow...

Requirement	Justification	DocBook Support	reST support
MUST have several years of active development.	Project prefers to use proven tools.
MUST have a major community of users.	Better chance for support/bug fixes in larger projects.

The documentation input format...

Requirement	Justification	DocBook Support	reST support
MUST support semantic markup.	More consistent appearance across output formats.
MUST support reasonable version control.	Allows maintainers to handle projects and diffs easily.
MUST support linking (cross-references) inside and between documents.	A requirement for professional documentation.
SHOULD be able to generate a List of Figures, Equations, etc.	Also required for professional documentation.
MUST support variable substitutions (also referred to as macros).	Easier maintenance.

The documentation flow...

Requirement	Justification	DocBook Support	reST support
MUST support internationalization.	GnuCash has a world-wide user base.
MUST support non-latin writing.	Many GnuCash users use non-latin languages.

Current state

it: used xml2po from gnome-doc-utils to create a po file. After several years without a translator, it got frozen because it became more and more "english with italian"
other languages: manually: Chapters (files) were copied from C and then section by section translated. Because we have many section ids, tools like KDiff3 can help while updating a translation.

Currently planned

Po_Based_Documentation_Translations by the W3C Recommendation Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 2.0.

Another Approach: Weblate is used since end of 2020 for source translation, suggests Sphinx for documentation. It uses reStructuredText as input.