keys and mouse reference went online in 0.46

[worms_x]

In 0.45.1, clicking on Help then on "keys and mouse" was opening a SVG file showing all the shortcuts references.

Since 0.46, clicking on Help then "Keys and mouse reference" launches a python extension and goes on the Internet.

I find that really annoying to have to go on the Internet for such a basic help feature, and I don't understand the rationale of such a change. On small machines, lauching yet another browser window can be painfully slow (and risky, CPU wise). Besides, this assumes the user does have a working internet connection, which isn't always true.

The only "reason" I can think of to explain the change would be if keys/mouse shortcuts would change very ( *very*) often, but I don't think it is the case?

"Keys and mouse reference" should be like the other tutorials, in the built-in Help document, and accessible from the local machine without going online, like it was in 0.45.1

[Alexandre Prokoudine (alexandre-prokoudine)]

I tend to agree.

What should really be done, IMO, is:

- install HTML version system wide, including localized versions
- link to (localized) local version rather than to website's one,

[Peter Moulder (pjrm)]

Bulia did the work in changing to the new approach in commits r16116 (adding inx), r16117 (changing menu-skeleton.h to from HelpKeys verb to the inx) and r16151 (removing HelpKeys verb).

Bulia, can you comment on the best course of action?

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Is there a reason why we changed it?

[Leandro Regueiro (leandro-regueiro)]

I think you should keep a version online. But if you are using an old Inkscape version you should get the reference for that version and not the latest one, so having a local version of the reference for the Inkscape version installed is a good idea.

Also both versions of the reference should be translatable using the .po format for making it more easy to translators maintain updated translations.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Leandro Regueiro wrote:
> But if you are using an old Inkscape version you should
> get the reference for that version and not the latest one

It already works this way: the old versions are still online. Using Inkscape 0.46 the menu entry opens the key reference for 0.46, using 0.47 the menu entry refers to the key reference for 0.47 (they do have different URLs). This works unless both versions share the same extensions folder: the extension definition file (share/extensions/inkscape_help_keys.inx) contains the URL string for each version. Handling multiple installations installed on the same computer is a different issue and providing a local copy in the 'share' directory would not help unless both versions access different share folders.

(tested with Inkscape 0.46 and 0.47 on Mac OS X 10.5.8)

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> Is there a reason why we changed it?

Buila's comment at the time:
<quote>
I decided to remove the feature that I myself added several versions
ago: keys and mouse reference as an SVG file. Since most Help menu
items are now URL links, so is this one, linking to this version's
current chart at: (…)
</quote>
<http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.graphics.inkscape.devel/22342>

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Now that there are translated versions online, I feel there's no need to use SVG versions anymore.
And even if the files don't change very often, we sometimes need to update them to fix errors, so it's not too bad if it's not local.
But as far as we release minor Inkscape versions, that last point is very debatable.

[Hachmann (marenhachmann)]

@Eduard: I think we decided to not fix this, so keys+mouse are always up-to-date.
Can we close this?

[Nathan Lee (nathan.lee)]

Not sure if it should be closed, but as part of bug migration to Gitlab, marking as invalid. Issue is still being tracked in the (open) issue: use the locally installed keys.*.html instead of connecting to the web https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/-/issues/968