Re: A new online publishing tool for Texinfo documents.

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

karl@freefriends.org (Karl Berry) writes:
>     But for such browsers HTML files is already good enough solution.
>
> No, it isn't.  That is the whole point of the Bob/Nic proposal.  It does
> not support search/index-search, which is a crucial feature.

The search in a whole document is already available for HTML files in
web browsers when HTML output is generated in one HTML file without
splitting.  However, loading one big HTML file in web browser
sometimes is undesirable.  In this case to search many HTML files some
CGI script on HTTP server will be needed if documentation is viewed
on the web by some web browser, or HTML search can be done by Emacs
if files are viewed locally.

>     1. continue to hack existing info.el to overcome existing limitations
>        of Info format;
>
> As I said, I see no point in trying to make Info format into some ersatz
> HTML or XML with "logical" markup, trying to somehow allow reformatting
> paragraphs and all the other things HTML does.  That way lies madness.

Yes, I agree that adding more markup to Info format is not an option.
What I meant here is the improvement of Info readers without changing
the current Info format.

> For using the Info system with bitmapped displays, using HTML/XML, such
> as Bob and Nic are proposing, seems to me to be a far superior approach.
> HTML/XML will be much better at that than the Info format ever could be.
> And we lose the simplicity and usefulness of current Info format if we
> try to make it into XML.
>
>     2. extend existing Web browser implemented in Emacs for better support
>        of Info HTML navigation;
>
> That is what Bob/Nic are proposing.

A new online publishing tool Bob and Nic are proposing will be useful
for normal web browsers.  However, implementing it with JavaScript
and XSLT will require too big effort to make it available for Emacs
web browsers.  Much easier is to write some Emacs Lisp code to handle
such HTML/XML files specially in Emacs web browsers.

>     3. try to use an additional XML format in Emacs;
>
> Again, that is what Bob/Nic are proposing -- essentially.  I suppose one
> could parse the XML output from Texinfo directly, but I don't think that
> has any special benefits in this case.  (Although GTK does it.)  It
> seems better to make it work with web browsers, since most everyone has
> a browser installed already.

Reading the XML output of Texinfo in Emacs might be a good alternative
to the current Info format, because it will allow to extend the XML
markup without affecting the Info viewer.

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