In GNOME 2.0 each applet will have its own documentation installed separately, and the GNOME 2.0 help browser (Nautilus) will dynamically merge the applet documents into a single virtual book called GNOME Applets. During the transitionary stage between GNOME 1.0 and GNOME 2.0, each applet in the gnome-applets package has its own manual(stored with the applet in CVS), but they are merged together manually to create the GNOME Applets book before distribution. Telsa <hobbit@aloss.ukuu.org.uk> is the maintainer of this document. Applet documentation should be sent to Telsa (or placed in CVS) who will make sure they are correctly packaged with the applets. The applet author should be contacted to modify the menu items and help buttons to bind to the applet documentation if necessary.
Images which are part of the applet documentation should be in PNG format and should reside in the same directory as the SGML document file in CVS(gnome-applets/APPLETNAME/help/C).
Applets which are not part of the gnome-applets package must package their documentation with the particular applet package. They should use the same applet template as other applets. However, the <xref> links to the introductory chapter of the GNOME Applets book must be removed (as the 1.x GNOME Help Browser does not allow you to create links between separate documents) and replaced with suitable text. Note that since this document is not part of the GNOME Applets book, you must remember to add <legalnotice> and <copyright> sections.
This section is for developers. Documentation authors generally do not need to know this material.
Applets should have About and Manual menu items, typically as the first and second top-most items in the menu respectively. This section describes how the developer creates these menu items and links them to the documentation.
To add an applet's manual to its applet menu, use:
/* add an item to the applet menu */
applet_widget_register_callback(APPLET_WIDGET(applet), "manual",
_("Manual"), &open_manual, NULL);
Here the second argument is an arbitrary name for the
callback, the third argument is the label which will appear
when the user right clicks on the applet, and the fourth
argument is the callback function.
You will need to write a simple callback function to open the help browser to the appropriate document. This is done using the gnome_help_file_find_file function, as described in the section called “Application Help Buttons”.
You will also want to add an About menu item to the applet's menu. This is a stock menu item and is done:
applet_widget_register_stock_callback (APPLET_WIDGET(applet), "about",
GNOME_STOCK_MENU_ABOUT, _("About"), &my_applet_cb_about,
NULL);
More information can be found at Writing GNOME panel applets using the GTK+/GTK-- widget set.