Re: nXML mode maintenance and enhancement

["N. Raghavendra" <nyraghu27132@gmail.com>]

At 2018-05-23T12:12:50-04:00, Stefan Monnier wrote:

>> 1. Make indentation in nXML mode compatible with that in the official
>>    SGML mode, and in the unofficial PSGML mode; the latter indentation
>>    styles are arguably more natural, and followed by projects like the
>>    FreeBSD Documentation Project.  I had stumbled across this problem
>>    recently, as in
>>    https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2018-05/msg00009.html
>
> Yes, in general sharing more code between those modes would be great.
> nXML's indentation algorithm is indeed one of its main weaknesses in
> my experience.
>
>> 2. Addition of features in PSGML mode, e.g,
>> 3. Support for XInclude.
>> 4. Provision of a facility similar to RefTeX for manipulating
>>    cross-references in a modular document.
>
> Yes, please!

Okay.  So I hope people will help if I come back here for help as I
attempt to implement some of the above things :-)

>> 5. Analogues of `LaTeX-fill-region' and friends from AUCTeX.
>
> Not sure what this would do which the default fill-region wouldn't do
> (once the indentation is improved)?

I don't know, but I use `LaTeX-fill-buffer' often, and it is a pleasure
to see it chugging along, saying "57% ..." and such things, and
eventually providing a buffer with the contents filled and indented
exactly as I would have done manually.  I don't have much experience
with `fill-region' in other modes; perhaps they work equally well.

> If I may add a personal wish: make it a bit more permissive with
> respect to details of the header (or better help the user fix those
> headers) so it's easier to use it for HTML5.

HTML5 is not an XML application, so I don't think nXML is the right mode
for it.  (It is not an SGML application, so (P)SGML is also
inappropriate for it.)  One possibility is to use the XHTML5 RELAX NG
schema from the Nu Validator,

https://github.com/validator/validator/blob/master/schema/html5/xhtml5.rnc

There is also an `html5.rnc' there, and I don't know what the difference
is.  I almost never write HTML manually, and have not used either of
them.

Raghu.

--
N. Raghavendra <raghu@hri.res.in>, http://www.retrotexts.net/
Harish-Chandra Research Institute, http://www.hri.res.in/