Maybe the issue is not clear… if the documentation file is missing (or there are errors in settings) an error message is shown.

The improvement is to redirect the user to the online doc. The idea is to provide a clickable link (that one can also not click) rather than just open the browser.

We always redirect users to the online doc, I don’t see what to discuss about.

If the issue is “The issue states: if offline doc is not found, provide link to the online doc”, I don’t agree with the issue and to me it can be closed. And we did not discuss before the idea of going online for the manual.

• The point has never been which one is better between online and offline.

• The point of the issue is “IF” offline doc is not found then redirect to the online one.

• The offline HTML could also not be found locally as PDF does, hence still we need to redirect the user online in such case

• We further increase the size of the package (with a lot of images screnshots, wasting the planet )

• Usually users want to print the manual or saving it in another folder, thing that with PDF is way longer easier than an HTML page for a standard user.

• I don’t know how we reached this point for a very simple issue 😝

👉 The issue states: if offline doc is not found, provide link to the online doc
For HTML version we can tackle in another issue (because it changes scripts and release process also)

I analyzed the topic and since I’ve been working quite a bit on the documentation part, I’ve come down to this proposal.

I think we should include both a PDF and an HTML version of the manual - as most software do - locally. The HTML manual can be generate with ascidoctor directly in build phase as we do for the pdf. If the user chooses the HTML version, a browser pops up and directly open the file:///OH_HOME/doc/html/UserManual.html

This will be render as the following:

https://www.open-hospital.org/wp-content/OH_manuals/user/UserManual.html

In this way:

• the html manual has a builtin index that makes the navigation i the manual easier

• the PDF version allows the user to print / read the manual

• we don’t require internet access for the client

• the local version of the manual is related to client version: the online manual is just the latest (we could set this into the link, something like “Manual latest version - online” or similar)

• local access is WAY faster than browsing a remote web server

• we save the planet (kind of just kidding, but firing up an internet connection through continents anytime an user has to check some feature is overkill )

• we don’t associate some client configuration to the OH web server: we might change something in the future (URL, anything, etc.) and we won’t have the possibility of changing the configuration of all the deployed clients.

We can obviously leave the link or button to the online version.

Is there any update on this issue?