Have you asked on https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-doc-list already?

I did just now.  Thanks for the tip.

Hi Jim, I don't yet see the email on the gnome-doc mailing list. I am interested in helping on documentation for this, though.

I think it went into the moderator-approval bin.  I thought I was subscribed, but I guess not.

Anyway, if you're up for helping out, the best way to get started would be to start with an index page and an introduction.  I haven't had time to map out a set of subjects, but I think Geary's help would be a good place to start.  California's feature set is fairly small.

The goal at this point is mostly to get the basics in place: Introduction, Using California (Month/Week view, adding/removing/updating an event, and Quick Add), and some end material about reporting bugs and getting more information.  That plus a menu item (and F1) to launch help.  Once this framework is in place, adding additional pages will be easy.

Hi Jim,

Agreed. I've worked on gedit help quite a bit, and think I could get a good start on California. Do you want me to create a help/C directory on git master for now, or would you prefer that I work from a separate branch?

Please work from a separate branch, I think that's for the best.  When I create private branches I name them wip/<bug#>-<shortname>, i.e. wip/732302-help.  That or something similar would be great.

Thanks for tackling this!

As a note, I have started work on this. My progress is in the wip/732302-help branch.

Fantastic!  This is a great start.

Even though California's kind of feature-limited at the moment, I don't expect you to write-up a full set of help docs (at least for the first commit -- even help can be added incrementally).

Keep up the great work!

I'm looking forward to this - it will be especially helpful to have a Quick Add reference.

Created attachment 285109 [details]
current draft help status

I had typed out a longer message, but attaching the file caused my text to disappear.

In short, I'm about 70% done, and should have things ready to review / possibly merge by around the 13th or so.

This looks like great progress, Jim.  We'll be releasing California the week of the 15th, so please get this in as soon as you can.

Is Quick Add help included in your help text?  The wiki page is probably too much for a help document -- I was just typing out everything I could in one go when I wrote it -- but a basic list of key concepts and some examples would go a long way.

I'll see if I can prioritize things to get it done this week, or at least by this weekend.

Quick Add help will be included, though I just have a stub topic in place for it now. I'll get that part in early so that you can have a look at it. I have an idea as to how I can organize that topic to make it easier to understand & still explain all of the features.

Re: Quick Add, I would stick with key concepts and then offer some examples.  My feeling about Quick Add is that examples go a long way: when people see a few patterns they'll put together quickly how it works.

Here's the Google Calendar help page on their own Quick Add feature.  This might give you a couple of ideas of how to organize the material.  (Note that California does *not* yet support all of Google's features.)

https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/36604?hl=en

I've made more progress, and should have things in good shape by Friday the 12th. Most of my work has been committed to the WIP branch, but I have some updates that I have yet to commit. I'm currently working on the quick-add help, and I haven't yet pushed that to git.

By the way, my work has been based on the most recently release (not builds fresh from git). If there are important changes in functionality that are part of the 0.2 release, please let me know what they are.

Great!

The big changes since 0.1.4 was released is the move to GTK+ 3.12.  The biggest change there is use of GtkPopover, which changes the flow of viewing/adding/editing events.  If you're adding screenshots, that's important.

I don't believe any "big" features will be going in from this point forward.  Right now I'm in bug-fixing mode.

I've added a "Help" option to the application menu, just to (a) get the plumbing in for invoking your Yelp help when it's ready, and (b) to introduce the _Help string for our translators.  Right now it goes to the California wiki page.

Jim, I looked over your work so far and it's very promising!

I committed a fair chunk of work last night, but still want to add or update info about adding, editing and removing events. I should be able to have things wrapped up (at least for the 0.2 release) over the weekend, mostly likely by Saturday.

I think I have things in a mostly serviceable state for the 0.2 release. Let me know if you have any adjustments that you'd like me to make, otherwise I think it's mostly ready.

As a note, there is some info I'd like to add in the future (e.g., removing calendars, dealing with warnings from the app, etc.), but I think this is a decent enough start for inclusion in version 0.2.

Ok. I had some free time, and gave this another look last night. I made a few updates.

I'd like to merge this for the 0.2 release. Let me know if you have any objections. If you think things are ok, let me know if you'd like me to do the merge and update the makefile or if you'd like to handle those updates.

I know that the help isn't 100% complete, so if you'd prefer to wait on merging, just let me know what you'd like added / changed.

Thanks.

Incomplete is okay, I never expected to have absolutely complete help for the first release.  What you've supplied is a great start.

I was planning on releasing California this week, but I'm currently blocked by a Vala bug that's causing a memory leak in Geary (bug #736774), so if you'd like to keep working, no problem.  If you could merge master into the help branch, that would assist me when I'm ready to move it in (which could be any day now).

Sounds good. Thanks. I'll merge master in the help branch, and will also let you know which files need to be added to the Makefile. I'll confirm when that's all done.

Hi Jim,

In the interests of time I've started making changes to the build system for the new help files.  I'm getting ready to commit the autotools stuff.  I'm assuming all the files in help need to be added to HELP_FILES and HELP_MEDIA.  If I'm wrong, please let me know or simply make the correction yourself.

I'm also going to start work in this branch to connect F1 help to launch Yelp as well as pressing the Help button in the Quick Add dialog going straight to the Quick Add help.  With that in place, and any final changes you have, I think we have a winner!

Jim, I've made the changes I indicated in my prior post.  Are there any other changes you want to make, or are you ready to merge into master?

I may have some editorial changes to make.  I'll make those in the branch until you say you're ready to pull the trigger.

Thanks, Jim. I'll let you go ahead and make any necessary changes to integrate the help. I see that you've already added the Makefile.am into the help directory. Thanks for that.

Feel free to make any editorial changes, as well. I don't plan to have any other updates prior to release.

Have fun releasing!

Great work!  Thanks for sticking with this and getting this ready in time for the release.

Pushed to master, commit 62075f