[Development] Assistant WebKit/WebEngine support

[André Pönitz]

On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 06:57:08AM +0200, Richard Weickelt wrote:
> Is it well known, how many QtCreator users are even using the integrated
> help functionality? How many Qt users are using QtAssistant and how many
> prefer the online documentation?

The exact numbers are not known (to me), but the patterns as such are in
principle. It is known that effectively the full range of possibilities
starting from reading the doc comments in Qt sources up to online docs
only are used in practice.

And it is known that no matter what option is selected as "the only
true one" some people will be left out.

> I stopped using the integrated help and QtAssisant at some point and now I
> am exclusively using the online documentation in my regular browser. I can't
> give an exact reason, but I can see a correlation of multiple things:
> 
> 1) Fast internet access became available everywhere I worked and there
>    was no noticable delay anymore in page loading.
> 2) I am reading so much in the browser anyway that I feel more
>    comfortable also reading the Qt docs in it.
> 3) I am using my browser anyway while working with Qt because
>    I often search in the mailing list, forum, other docs, etc.
> 4) Using a regular search engine leads to good-enough search results
>    and is very fast
> 5) There was the point where Qt's online docs started to look better.
>    Cripser fonts, more whitespace, better code highlighting.
> 
> I guess no matter how hard you try and how much effort you put into it, I'll
> probably never use QtCreator's integrated help again.

That's a valid usage pattern.

> I'd rather appreciate
> QtCreator to be slim and fast, both when using and building it. I think the
> time, energy should rather be spend in improving the documentation as a
> whole. I'd like to see more video tutorials about QtCreator best practices,
> for instance.

I usuall run a mixture of online docs and reading the comments directly,
except in the occasional off-line case where it is QTextBrowser and/or
comments.

> And yes, I (and a lot of users) would appreciate if qdoc would output
> exactly the same nice html design as doc.qt.io.

And as usual, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. E.g. I still dislike
the current Qt Green, especially as text color. And unfortunately for me
in that case the rate of change of design seems to have slowed down
lately in that area;&}

Andre'