From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kevin Rodgers Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: A new online publishing tool for Texinfo documents. Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 11:54:21 -0700 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <3FCCDFDD.2030306@yahoo.com> References: <8765hcf7q8.fsf@kanga.tapsellferrier.co.uk> <3FC3A11D.8040408@yahoo.com> <3FC4F303.9040201@yahoo.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1070394717 25724 80.91.224.253 (2 Dec 2003 19:51:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003 19:51:57 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Tue Dec 02 20:51:53 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1ARGYr-00034e-00 for ; Tue, 02 Dec 2003 20:51:53 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1ARGYr-0001ya-00 for ; Tue, 02 Dec 2003 20:51:53 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1ARHTM-0003bg-OC for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Tue, 02 Dec 2003 15:50:16 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1ARGdF-0002T9-Qr for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 02 Dec 2003 14:56:25 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1ARGcc-0002Ms-50 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 02 Dec 2003 14:56:17 -0500 Original-Received: from [80.91.224.249] (helo=main.gmane.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1ARGcZ-0002MX-6k for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 02 Dec 2003 14:55:43 -0500 Original-Received: from list by main.gmane.org with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1ARFf7-0001UG-00 for ; Tue, 02 Dec 2003 19:54:17 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-Received: from sea.gmane.org ([80.91.224.252]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1ARFf6-0001U8-00 for ; Tue, 02 Dec 2003 19:54:16 +0100 Original-Received: from news by sea.gmane.org with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1ARFf6-0004mw-00 for ; Tue, 02 Dec 2003 19:54:16 +0100 Original-Lines: 80 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS i86pc; en-US; rv:0.9.4.1) Gecko/20020406 Netscape6/6.2.2 X-Accept-Language: en-us X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:18292 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:18292 Robert J. Chassell wrote: > Nic said, "It's an additional format to solve the specific problem > of reading documentation that you don't happen to have on your > local machine." > > Kevin Rodgers replied > > First of all, I question whether an additional format is required, > since that will demand that Emacs and other Info readers be > modified to support the new format. > > But the proposed HTML format has nothing to do with Info! It is a > different HTML format. Its intent is to enable standards compliant > Web browsers to read documents on the Web (and if Web servers put in > the requisit CGI, to enable Web browsers to navigate via search). I just wanted to point out that there are divergent goals being discussed in this single thread. > Second, everyone seems to agree that Info's search and navigation > facilities are superior to HTML; so shouldn't we take advantage of > that? > > Right, that is why Info should not be changed (unless someone wants > to enhance it by enabling slow connections between an Info doc server > and the Info renderer; right now the connection must be fast). I don't understand why that is, i.e. why the server <-> client connection speed for HTML is not adequate for Info as well. > Third, Info files can be rendered very quickly (especially compared > to HTML) because they have already been pre-processed from the > Texinfo source, but the download time for Info is no worse than > HTML because it's not much bigger than the source. > > I do not understand you. It takes me 17 minutes to download the Emacs > Lisp Reference Manual. When I do the manual in Info format, I then > later read it in Info. I do not wait 17 minutes and then start > reading. > > The goal with the HTML/CGI proposal is that if I were to browse the > manual remotely in a Web browser, I would need to download only small > parts -- nodes most likely -- quickly, so I would not have to wait 17 > minutes. Right; but I assumed that the remote Info manual is already split into relatively small files, and I should have said that an Info _node_ can be displayed quickly (at least as quickly as an HTML page). And my little experiment showed that you can already browse a remote Info manual, only downloading the subfiles as necessary, using ange-ftp. > Searching an entire document, whether it's in Info format or HTML > and whether it's a monolithic entity or split into pieces still > requires that the data be downloaded. > > No, it does not. That is the point of a CGI script. You do *not* > have to download a whole document if the serving computer does the > work for you. Indeed, I was wrong: even a remote Info file accessed via ange-ftp can be searched incrementally. If the goal is to make remote documentation available in current Info browsers, they just need to be changed to recognize remote file syntax (like ange-ftp, tramp, or http-get.el provide for Emacs). If the goal is to make documentation available for web browsers, makeinfo --html already does that. Right? -- Kevin Rodgers