[tor-bugs] #11698 [Applications/Tor Browser]: Decide how to incorporate Tor Browser Manual pages into Tor Browser

[Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki]

#11698: Decide how to incorporate Tor Browser Manual pages into Tor Browser
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 Reporter:  mttp                      |          Owner:
     Type:  defect                    |         Status:  new
 Priority:  Medium                    |      Milestone:
Component:  Applications/Tor Browser  |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                    |     Resolution:
 Keywords:  tbb-manual, SponsorO      |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:  #10974                    |         Points:
 Reviewer:                            |        Sponsor:
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Comment (by arthuredelstein):

 Replying to [comment:20 gk]:

 > 1) What format should the manual included have (It seems so far HTML is
 the favorite one?)?

 My feeling is HTML is preferable, because we already have an HTML version
 at https://tb-manual.torproject.org. Having two versions (say, HTML and
 PDF) would be an extra maintenance burden. Also it seems to me that PDFs
 are harder to read on-screen.

 > 2) Where should it be made visible to the user? Ideally, the user would
 be able to consult the manual even if Tor Browser is not properly
 starting-up due to censorship restrictions.

 I think we should be able to add a help button in the initial tor launcher
 dialog that opens a window to display the HTML manual pages. This could be
 a XUL window containing a <browser> widget, but no location bar, toolbar,
 tabs, or extensions. I *think* such a window won't risk proxy bypass, as
 Tor Browser's networking prefs are already set to use a SOCKS proxy, and
 will simply fail if tor is not yet ready.

 > 3) We need a process for shipping an up-to-date manual in every Tor
 Browser release. Especially shipping outdated translations seems like a
 thing we need to avoid. How could that process look like? Who would be
 responsible for which part in this case?

 My suggestion would be to have two versions: a stable and an alpha manual
 (#20665). When a user-facing change is made in stable or alpha browsers,
 the authors or committers of the browser patch should notify Phoul with a
 ticket under component Community/Tor Browser Manual. My understanding is
 that we are going to rely on Transifex translators to keep the translated
 manuals up to date. If we continuously update the alpha manual as features
 are added or changed, then it will generally give the translators more
 time to translate each new piece of text. When an alpha version becomes
 stable, then the alpha translations can be promoted to stable as well.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/11698#comment:21>
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