From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: HTML-Info design Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 22:41:19 +0200 Message-ID: <83ioh2nlow.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87388bnzha.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <87k31mdbhe.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87tx0qiv45.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87h9wqd3i5.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87h9wqimf0.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87y4q1fekv.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87fvc858c6.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87ioh4nf8k.fsf@ferrier.me.uk> <83y4pzptpx.fsf@gnu.org> <871tnr1gqo.fsf@ferrier.me.uk> <83bnmvowdb.fsf@gnu.org> <83ppbanqhe.fsf@gnu.org> <87vbl2xigp.fsf@ferrier.me.uk> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1419367311 6850 80.91.229.3 (23 Dec 2014 20:41:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 20:41:51 +0000 (UTC) Cc: stephen@xemacs.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, rms@gnu.org To: Nic Ferrier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Dec 23 21:41:44 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3WH1-0004jZ-EH for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 21:41:43 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:46228 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3WH0-0001wL-7E for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 15:41:42 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38341) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3WGt-0001wC-U4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 15:41:40 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3WGp-00085a-Br for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 15:41:35 -0500 Original-Received: from mtaout22.012.net.il ([80.179.55.172]:43688) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3WGp-00085U-4V; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 15:41:31 -0500 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout22.012.net.il by a-mtaout22.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0NH100600YOKW200@a-mtaout22.012.net.il>; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 22:41:29 +0200 (IST) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([87.69.4.28]) by a-mtaout22.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0NH1006A4YT5BGA0@a-mtaout22.012.net.il>; Tue, 23 Dec 2014 22:41:29 +0200 (IST) In-reply-to: <87vbl2xigp.fsf@ferrier.me.uk> X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 X-Received-From: 80.179.55.172 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:180603 Archived-At: > From: Nic Ferrier > Cc: Stefan Monnier , stephen@xemacs.org, rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org > Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 19:40:54 +0000 > > You are suggesting this isn't a valid POC. No, I didn't say that. Quite the contrary, I said it does constitute a POC. > * implements node browsing through a toc > * auto completion of toc elements > * auto completion of index elements (how they are displayed is really > irrelevant) > * info like traversal (collecting the history) > * an info/emacs like keymap > > What it does not implement: > > * full text search > > But I don't see why that is a difficult thing. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. If I knew JS like you do, like I know C and Lisp and a few other languages, I could probably have an independent opinion without a working implementation. But I don't, so I must look at the implementation, see what it does and what it doesn't, and decide if I'm convinced. Please understand that to me, the search functionality -- all kinds of it -- that we have in Info is the main feature. That is what makes Info shine in my eyes. Not menu completion (in a browser, I'm supposed to be using the mouse, so I don't really need completion so much). Not the Emacs-like keymap (I can configure my browser for that myself, and actually did that already). Not Info-like history -- that is trivial with a Web browser. All that is much less important than the features that let me find stuff quickly and efficiently. So text search across the entire document is a must, and likewise substring matching in index entries and support for several index nodes. Without this, a documentation browser is not worth it for me. Now, it could well be that adding those is a piece of cake, but I just don't know that. Until you show me that it is indeed doable without jumping through hoops, and can work on several popular browsers, I won't be convinced, sorry. Likewise with the directionality of the index prompt -- it might be a minor issue for a POC, but if it turns out that it is insoluble in principle, it's a showstopper, I hope you agree. And there are other valuable features in Info, please take a look at the commands in inf*.el files. Some of them probably won't be possible or practical with www+js technique, like index-apropos, for example. Which is a pity, at least for me, but what bothers me is how many more of such important features will have to be thrown away, how much useful functionality we will have to give up? We are talking about replacing an existing browser, one that is developed for decades and is chock-full of useful features. I use many of them every day. People can say it's "samizdat" all they want, but for me it is a tremendously useful tool. If you want to convince me that the replacement will be worthy, you need to show that those important features, or at least some non-trivial subset thereof, can be had with your suggested approach. And given my JS ignorance, the only way of showing that is by implementing it. Because I have no idea what will it take to write a multi-file regexp search in JS. I hope I made myself clear. Once again, thanks for working on this.