[18:13] <pleia2> bkerensa: any luck finding that broken screenshot script and trying it out?
[18:14] <pleia2> I'm writing a getting involved blog post for the team and it would be great to give that broken script job to someone
[18:26] <godbyk> pleia2: The script is called collect-screenshots.sh. It lives in the root dir of the repository.
[18:27] <pleia2> godbyk: ah, thanks!
[18:27] <godbyk> pleia2: no problem. :)
[18:28] <pleia2> godbyk: oh, and you have email
[18:28]  * pleia2 on docs this morning
[18:28] <godbyk> nice
[18:28] <pleia2> we can chat about it here, nothing private about the mail
[18:28] <godbyk> 'kay.
[18:28] <godbyk> Let me skim through your doc. One moment
[18:29] <pleia2> The program 'bzr' is currently not installed.
[18:29] <pleia2> hehe, new laptops
[18:29]  * pleia2 follows all her own instructions!
[18:29] <godbyk> I take so many things for advantage like that. And when I set up a new PC I always discover just how many packages aren't installed by default. :)
[18:31] <godbyk> There are a couple ways we can handle volunteers:
[18:32] <godbyk> 1. Just let them review anything they like and hope everyone doesn't choose to review the same few pages; or
[18:32] <godbyk> 2. Assign volunteers to certain pages to help ensure full coverage of the current docs.
[18:32] <pleia2> my concern with 2 is that it seems like a big task
[18:33] <pleia2> we'll need to set up a mechanism to track this and for people to sign up quickly so they don't get bored and walk away
[18:33] <godbyk> It's usually not too bad. For the Ubuntu Manual, we just have a spreadsheet that tracks who is writing/editing each section or chapter.
[18:33] <pleia2> ah, spreadsheet is a good idea
[18:33] <godbyk> People can request particular sections/chapters and we try to assign them based on preference.
[18:33] <pleia2> I used to like the wiki for these things, but so many people have trouble logging in to and editing the silly thing
[18:34] <godbyk> At the end, we often have some sections that are still missing authors/editors and we then request volunteers to fill those specific slots.
[18:34] <pleia2> cool
[18:34] <godbyk> Maintaining tables on the wiki is especially bothersome, too.
[18:34] <pleia2> yeah
[18:34] <pleia2> so, shall I create said spreadsheet?
[18:35] <godbyk> Sure.
[18:35] <godbyk> Also, for volunteers who want to do some drive-by editing, they can just look at the current docs at help.ubuntu.com and let us know what needs to be updated.
[18:35] <godbyk> There may be some mismatches between the 13.04 docs and the work we've already done on 13.10, but I don't think the gap is very large at the moment.
[18:36] <godbyk> (This way the volunteers don't need to learn bzr or Mallard or anything. Just read the existing docs and tell us where the errors are.)
[18:36]  * pleia2 nods
[18:37] <pleia2> is there an easy way to build the docs for viewing?
[18:37] <pleia2> for xubuntu 'make' in the doc directory makes an html version that's quite handy for normal people reviewing
[18:38] <godbyk> That's a list of all the .page files. We could group them a bit, too (e.g., a11y, accounts, add/remove, backup).
[18:38] <godbyk> You can run 'make' in the ubuntu-docs, too, but you'll need to have a few other packages installed first.
[18:39] <pleia2> wow, that's lots of pages :)
[18:39] <godbyk> Thankfully, most of them are quite short.
[18:39] <pleia2> I didn't actually realize the docs were so big
[18:39] <godbyk> You'll need the following Ubuntu packages: bzr xsltproc libxml2-utils yelp-tools yelp-xsl
[18:40] <godbyk> I think running 'make html' will do the minimum amount of work to generate the html files.
[18:40] <godbyk> Reading the .page files (with Mallard markup) isn't too difficult either, but it's definitely easier to view the rendered HTML.
[18:40] <pleia2> ok
[18:41] <pleia2> oh gosh, it's taking like 4 days to do bzr branch lp:ubuntu/ubuntu-docs
[18:41] <godbyk> bzr (or Launchpad) does seem awfully slow sometimes.
[18:42] <pleia2> godbyk: are you able to access this? http://etherpad.ubuntu.com/sUWEmOmlvR
[18:42] <pleia2> if not, I can add you to the etherpad team
[18:42] <pleia2> much easier than reviewing+updating static file in my /temp dir on my website
[18:43] <godbyk> pleia2: Yes.
[18:43] <pleia2> ok cool
[18:47] <godbyk> pleia2: One problem with viewing the html docs locally is that I think there are some http://help.ubuntu.com/... links in the docs so it may send you to the online docs at some point instead of the local files.
[18:47] <pleia2> godbyk: ah, interesting point
[18:48] <pleia2> some day when this bzr branch finishes I'll run through this process myself and see if there are any other gotchas
[18:50] <godbyk> It looksl ike most of the links to help.ubuntu.com are in the footer, so it may not be as big of a problem as I thought.
[18:51] <godbyk> There are some links to the community wiki, as well.
[18:51]  * pleia2 nods
[18:51] <godbyk> In any case, I don't think it'll be a huge problem. If a bug gets reported multiple times, that's better than not getting reported at all.
[18:51] <pleia2> agreed
[18:53] <pleia2> ok, I'm going to share this spreadsheet with the list before sharing it in blog
[18:53] <godbyk> Sounds good.
[18:53] <godbyk> See what they think of the idea.
[18:59] <pleia2> done
[19:00] <godbyk> I updated your spreadsheet usage to have the reviewers check the spreadsheet first to find a page that hasn't yet been reviewed.
[19:00] <godbyk> Hopefully that'll cut down on everyone reviewing the same few pages.
[19:01] <pleia2> \o/
[19:01] <godbyk> Should I suggest that they call your home phone number if they have questions?  ;-)
[19:01] <pleia2> lol
[19:05] <pleia2> ok, this post looks good, thanks godbyk :)
[19:06] <godbyk> No problem. I'm happy to help. :)
[19:06] <godbyk> Hopefully this will help jump-start things a bit.
[19:11] <godbyk> One thing the spreadsheet won't help us with is determining what topics the documentation should cover that it currently doesn't.
[19:11] <godbyk> Are there new features or default apps that we need to write new documentation for?
[19:11] <pleia2> that's a very good question, bkerensa tried to get some help from jono on that but came up empty
[19:12] <pleia2> the beta1 comes out this week and Ubuntu should have some release notes for it (they didn't do any alphas)
[19:12] <pleia2> I'm inclined to mostly crib from those unless we find a better way
[19:12] <godbyk> Okay, we'll have to see what we can glean from those.
[19:12] <godbyk> It'd be nice if the developers/designers could shoot us an email or CC us on bugs when they add new features or change things.
[19:13] <godbyk> Anymore, it seems like the documentation is an afterthought (if that).
[19:13] <pleia2> yeah, that would be nice
[19:13] <pleia2> the party line seems to be "read the blueprints" but there are like 100s :)
[19:13] <godbyk> Yeah, and many of the blueprints never come to fruition.
[19:13] <pleia2> yeah
[19:13] <godbyk> They stall out for one reason or another.
[19:14] <pleia2> I'm hoping that as the team becomes more visible again people will want to pay attention to docs and make sure their new stuff is advertised
[19:14] <godbyk> I also get a little perturbed when it comes to breaking the UI freeze or documentation freeze.  Everyone seems fairly cavalier about that.
[19:14] <pleia2> yeah, I've really not been impressed with that lately
[19:15] <pleia2> Branched 112 revisions.
[19:15] <pleia2> w00t done
[19:15] <godbyk> On the few occasions I've been involved with those discussions, we've either allowed the freeze exception or, if we protested the exception, sabdfl overrode us anyway.
[19:15] <pleia2> godbyk: have you ever run this collect-screenshots.sh ? I'm wondering, do I just fire up a new 13.10 VM and try to run it and see what happens?
[19:15] <godbyk> Finally! :-)
[19:16] <godbyk> Yeah, you can run it in a VM to see what happens.
[19:16] <godbyk> I wouldn't run it on your main installation because it changes the screen resolution and other things without prompting.
[19:16] <godbyk> Be prepared for windows to start opening and closing a bunch, too.
[19:16] <pleia2> ok, I'll do that in a bit and send my report to the list, then share it on my twitters and things so we can find someone to fix it
[19:16] <pleia2> hah, I run Xubuntu anyway :)
[19:16] <godbyk> The script tries to set the screen resolution then automatically run programs and take screenshots.
[19:16]  * pleia2 nods
[19:17] <godbyk> Thanks. It's been on my to do list for a while and I just haven't gotten to it yet.
[19:17] <pleia2> my husband's best friend is in town so I have a lonely day while they go tear up the town together ;)
[19:17] <godbyk> Ah, nice.
[19:18] <pleia2> although, I haven't eaten in a while and I should probably go do that
[19:18] <pleia2> I'll post blog thing and play with script upon my return
[19:18] <godbyk> Sounds good.
[19:18] <godbyk> I'm going to take a shower and then find something to eat, too.
[19:18]  * godbyk slept in this morning.
[19:18]  * pleia2 too
[19:18] <pleia2> see you in a bit then
[19:18] <godbyk> See you.
[21:37] <godbyk> pleia2: Well, I'm finding a few bugs in the collect-screenshots.sh script...
[21:38] <godbyk> Line 110: dir should be $dir
[21:39] <godbyk> Line 114: -eq should be ==
[21:41] <pleia2> I learned that you need to install xdotool before it'll work
[21:41] <godbyk> Oh, yeah.
[21:41] <godbyk> and imagemagick
[21:41] <godbyk> See the comment at the top of the script.
[21:42] <godbyk> We should add checks for those programs so it installs them if they're missing.
[21:42] <pleia2> I am supposed to read the script before I run it?! details details :)
[21:42] <godbyk> Yeah, no kidding!
[21:42] <godbyk> I figured it out by running the script and reading the errors. :-/
[21:42] <pleia2> hehe
[21:46] <pleia2> gosh, running ubuntu in a vm these days isn't exactly zippy
[21:47] <godbyk> Yeah.
[21:47] <godbyk> If you don't have a 3D graphics card it runs dog slow.
[21:48] <godbyk> You know what would be nice?  If someone had added comments to this script. :-)
[21:50] <pleia2> hehe
[21:50]  * pleia2 follows the instructions this time and runs it
[21:52] <pleia2> ta-da! http://princessleia.com/journal/?p=8443
[21:53] <godbyk> \o/
[21:55] <godbyk> Well, I finished running the collect-screenshots.sh script.
[21:55] <godbyk> And I have a handful of screenshots in the ~/.ubuntu-help/en_US/figures/ dir.
[21:55] <godbyk> Some of them seem okay, but I think some might be incorrect.
[21:55] <godbyk> I think there are race conditions in the script.
[21:55]  * pleia2 nods
[21:56] <godbyk> I think it means to kill all the apps it opened before making the next screenshot.
[21:56] <godbyk> But since everything is running asynchronously it doesn't always work out.
[21:56] <godbyk> (Or something)
[21:58] <godbyk> http://kevin.godby.org/private/ubuntu-doc/figures/  ← here's what I ended up with
[21:58] <godbyk> I think http://kevin.godby.org/private/ubuntu-doc/figures/unity-appmenu-intro.png, for example, is too cluttered.
[21:59] <pleia2> interesting, different than mine
[21:59] <godbyk> Does yours close the apps more quickly?
[21:59] <pleia2> actually, looks very similar except for unity and unity2 (I didn't get those)
[22:00] <godbyk> Ah.. the unity.png file won't exist until you fix a bug in the script.
[22:00] <godbyk> Two bugs.
[22:00] <pleia2> and nautilus worked ok for me, but my unity-appmenu-intro.png was wrong too, I got the calendar :)
[22:00] <godbyk> Line 110: add $ before dir
[22:00] <godbyk> Line 114: change -eq to ==
[22:01] <pleia2> heh, for -exit I got the calendar too
[22:01] <godbyk> Hmm.. are you running at 1024×768?
[22:02] <pleia2> yeah
[22:02] <godbyk> Once you run the script you have to keeps your hands off the mouse, too. It'll move the mouse pointer around programmatically to click on those menus.
[22:03] <pleia2> http://princessleia.com/temp/figures/
[22:04] <godbyk> Ha! Between the two of us we might have just over half the screenshots. ;-)
[22:05] <godbyk> What a brittle way to take screenshots... relying on magic coordinates to never change, particular screen resolutions, random files downloaded from urls that could vanish at any moment, ...
[22:09] <pleia2> yeah
[22:29] <godbyk> I just pushed the couple bug fixes I mentioned above (lines 110 1nd 114).
[22:35] <pleia2> great
[22:55] <godbyk> I'm working on spiffying up the script, too.
[22:56] <godbyk> Adding more status info (with colors!) and adding comments so it's easier to see what's happening (or should be happening).
[23:02] <pleia2> \o/
[23:07] <godbyk> Wow, someone was feeling clever!
[23:07] <godbyk> In the script, they set the time to be the same as the Ubuntu version.
[23:08] <godbyk> For us to do that with 13.10, however, we'll have to switch to military time.