Re: [Audacity-manual] Tracking changes across pages

[Ed M. <edg...@wa...>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gale Andrews 
> 
> I think that we need a single person who tracks source code changes to
take
> responsibility for tracking required Manual changes. That person must read
the SVN
> commits including reading the code changes themselves:
> https://groups.google.com/group/audacity-svn .
> 
> Ed would be good here :=). We should search for the changed menu items so
we catch
> all the pages where the commands are used. 
>
[   --Ed   ] 
This is what I've done for the last couple of years. There are some
problems. 

It is often very difficult to read the code to see if the changes affect the
manual.

The comments are almost always meaningless and almost never mention any GUI
changes:
	Correct error trap - compare with what we are expecting.
		Poor--no idea what might be going on.
	Improve font size and colour for track name in waveform pane
		Good--no doubt that it is a GUI change.
	Capitalize heading in line with current style
		suspect this might impact manual, but have to dig into the
code
	Moved /community/donate to its own tab. 
		suspect this might impact manual, but have to dig into the
code

With the feature freeze the odds were fair that a commit did not change the
manual; now that Audacity will be out of the freeze I suspect this will go
the other direction--many commits will affect the manual.

I don't use most of Audacity's features. Determining if a commit changes the
manual requires me to figure out how to test the commit.

The programmers need to create a rough draft covering the details when they
make code changes which affect the manual but they will not.

So, respectfully, "No, thanks!" Lobby the Programmers to consider the
manual, improve their commit comments and document code changes.


--Ed