Bug 241672 – Automatically symlinking identical GNOME user documentation figure pictures

• Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Mart Raudsepp 2008-10-13 00:53:11 UTC]

I'm filing a few ideas away as bugs, so they don't rot in just my head and TODO files.

Many GNOME applications user documentation translations (gnome-doc-utils infrastructure iirc) initially copy the screenshots and figures from the main C/english documentation and often don't take a localized screenshot and it remains as the English one. Hence they are sometimes byte equal, and we could tweak the "translated" figure to be a symlink to the main one instead, saving space on user systems - most importantly there should be some savings for a LiveCD situation.

Of course all this needs investigation -- how many pictures actually are equal, how does it work out, where to do the symlinking, how to automate it, is it worth it, etc...
This is one trick that RedHat/Fedora people do for their LiveCD's, as heard from a Red Hat developer.

[Comment 1 Gilles Dartiguelongue (RETIRED) 2009-02-28 12:32:35 UTC]

Actually, gnome-doc-utils-0.14 already does this it seems. However not all packages are using this version yet.

install-doc-figs:
	@list='$(patsubst C/%,%,$(_DOC_C_FIGURES))'; for fig in $$list; do \
	  for lc in C $(_DOC_REAL_LINGUAS); do \
	    figsymlink=false; \
	    if test -f "$$lc/$$fig"; then \
	      figfile="$$lc/$$fig"; \
	    elif test -f "$(srcdir)/$$lc/$$fig"; then \
	      figfile="$(srcdir)/$$lc/$$fig"; \
	    else \
	      figsymlink=true; \
	    fi; \
	    figdir="$$lc/"`echo $$fig | sed -e 's/^\(.*\/\).*/\1/' -e '/\//!s/.*//'`; \
	    figdir="$(DESTDIR)$(HELP_DIR)/$(DOC_MODULE)/$$figdir"; \
	    if ! test -d "$$figdir"; then \
	      echo "$(mkinstalldirs) $$figdir"; \
	      $(mkinstalldirs) "$$figdir"; \
	    fi; \
	    figbase=`echo $$fig | sed -e 's/^.*\///'`; \
	    if $$figsymlink; then \
	      echo "cd $$figdir && $(LN_S) -f ../../C/$$fig $$figbase"; \
	      ( cd "$$figdir" && $(LN_S) -f "../../C/$$fig" "$$figbase" ); \
	    else \
	      echo "$(INSTALL_DATA) $$figfile $$figdir$$figbase"; \
	      $(INSTALL_DATA) "$$figfile" "$$figdir$$figbase"; \
	    fi; \
	  done; \
	done

[Comment 2 Mart Raudsepp 2009-04-19 02:33:54 UTC]

This code is there since gnome-doc-utils-0.14.1

[Comment 3 Mart Raudsepp 2009-04-19 04:32:41 UTC]

I think this code works only if the translators haven't added copies of english ones already, doesn't it?
Like many packages user doc translations already copy english figures without having them updated, and I don't think those will be killed automatically and replaced with symlinks. Didn't digest through that bash code all that much though.
But yeah, the bottom-line is that the mechanisms are there in gnome-doc-utils to do it right, but just packages need to use a new enough version, and possibly delete the figures that are mere identical copies of the C locale (american english) figures.

[Comment 4 Pacho Ramos 2011-02-04 09:41:44 UTC]

(In reply to comment #2)
> This code is there since gnome-doc-utils-0.14.1
> 

Well, that version is pretty old, how could we see what packages are still using older version than that?

[Comment 5 Pacho Ramos 2011-12-17 13:50:35 UTC]

(In reply to comment #4)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > This code is there since gnome-doc-utils-0.14.1
> > 
> 
> Well, that version is pretty old, how could we see what packages are still
> using older version than that?

What do we need to do related with this problem now that new enough gnome-doc-utils is around for a long time? Thanks

[Comment 6 Gilles Dartiguelongue (RETIRED) 2012-11-04 12:18:32 UTC]

I think we can just close this bug as obsolete.