The opensuse-style project currently consists of two guides: a documentation guide and a program text guide. The two guides are consistent, but outline guidelines for different situations. They are kept as separate documents because few people need the information from both of them. Separation makes it easier to focus on the expected skills and needs of the different groups.
The documentation style guide applies to all documentation that is part of the openSUSE project or any Novell-SUSE Linux product. It provides guidelines for wording, structural issues, some grammar tips, and punctuation. It also contains a list of the preferred spelling for words that are not in an average dictionary, have multiple accepted spellings, or are frequently misspelled.
This guide is provided in both HTML and PDF formats.
The program text style guide should be considered authoritative for all Linux programs and applications developed within Novell-SUSE or by openSUSE as part of the distribution. It provides capitalization rules for different UI elements, punctuation guidelines, and other wording recommendations relevant only to developers of program texts. It contains an excerpt of the word list with words that are often relevant in our program texts.
Although parts of the program text guide sometimes refer to the documentation guide for expanded guidelines, the intention is for the average program text developer to need nothing more than the program text guide to develop consistent openSUSE and Novell-SUSE software. The guide is kept as small as possible to make it an easier reference.
This guide does not contain programming guidelines except for variables and comments directly related to translation. It should be applicable to all types of programming, although terminology and situations may originally be more oriented to YaST and SaX development.
If a program is also part of the KDE or GNOME desktop or other project with an existing style guide and this guide conflicts with the other project's guide, exceptions may be allowed. Use your best judgment in these cases.
This guide is provided in both HTML and PDF formats.
The style guides have version numbers to help identify when a specific copy is or is not valid. The version number is increased by one each time a release contains new or significantly modified rules. The PDF and HTML versions additionally contain the SVN revision number of the files used to build them and the build date. Any copy of the guide containing the newest official version number is equally valid. If the SVN revision numbers differ, there may be minor variations, such as typo changes or clarification improvements, but the guidelines themselves are the same.
The current guide is Version 1.
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