[Octave-patch-tracker] [patch #8988] Adding to index.html of manual, installation/loading commands

[Julien Bect]

Follow-up Comment #19, patch #8988 (project octave):

I agree with Carnë that copying standard installation instructions on all
index.html pages is perhaps not a great idea.

On the other hand, I think that this kind of basic "Getting started"
information should be found *very* easily on the Octave Forge website. 
Currently, it's not.

This points to the Octave Forge website (and GNU FAQ) as the relevant
target(s) for improvement, in my opinion.

Let me give a few examples:

 * There is actually a video, which should be useful for newcomers, on this
page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/octave. But getting there from a
package index file is not easy (you have to select "Link", which is the 8th
item in a rather long list of nine items, and then click on the obscure
"SourceForge summary page for the Octave-Forge project" link).

 * There is a also FAQ link in the header bar, which points to an almost empty
page, which points to the general FAQ... which contains very little
information about packages (and not basic stuff such as "pkg install -forge
...").

 * The documentation page (http://octave.sourceforge.net/docs.html) does not
contain any simple "getting started" information, simply another link to the
same general FAQ.

 * I just realized that the "pkg install -forge ..." instruction is actually
available from the "Home" page. But I don't think that people looking at a
particular package and wondering how to install it will go back to the home
page. They would rather look for something called "Help", "Getting started" or
"Documentation".

I would suggest:

 1. providing some very basic "getting started" information on the
Documentation page (more or less what Fernando wants to insert in index.html
pages);

 2. dealing with more specific (but yet common) questions in a dedicated
section of the FAQ, which needs to be created;

 3. simplifying access to the most important information by reducing the
number of items in the header bar: I think that a single "Help" page could
gather all the information for packages _users_ (not developers) which is
currently scattered accross the home page, the documentation page, the FAQ
page (redundant with the documentation page); similarly, a developers page
would gather the information for developpers (scattered accross the home page,
the developers page, the mailing list page, the code page...).



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