From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Juri Linkov Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Info enhancements Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 17:43:47 +0200 Organization: JURTA Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <87ptf0skek.fsf@mail.jurta.org> References: <878ylrbbk4.fsf@mail.jurta.org> <200312051827.hB5IRfk17741@f7.net> <87isku20s6.fsf@mail.jurta.org> <7137-Sat06Dec2003113832+0200-eliz@elta.co.il> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1070812206 24254 80.91.224.253 (7 Dec 2003 15:50:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 15:50:06 +0000 (UTC) Cc: bob@rattlesnake.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org, karl@freefriends.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Sun Dec 07 16:49:56 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 1AT1AS-0000QC-00 for ; Sun, 07 Dec 2003 16:49:56 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AT1AR-0004kj-00 for ; Sun, 07 Dec 2003 16:49:56 +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 1AT25B-0008Lk-To for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Sun, 07 Dec 2003 11:48:33 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AT24x-0008LS-Nd for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 07 Dec 2003 11:48:19 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AT24R-00085O-MG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 07 Dec 2003 11:48:18 -0500 Original-Received: from [64.246.52.22] (helo=ns5.tangramltd.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (TLSv1:DES-CBC3-SHA:168) (Exim 4.24) id 1AT24R-00085L-Af for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 07 Dec 2003 11:47:47 -0500 Original-Received: from 80-235-42-190-dsl.mus.estpak.ee ([80.235.42.190] helo=mail.jurta.org) by ns5.tangramltd.com with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 1AT16p-00005A-9U; Sun, 07 Dec 2003 17:46:11 +0200 Original-To: Eli Zaretskii In-Reply-To: <7137-Sat06Dec2003113832+0200-eliz@elta.co.il> (Eli Zaretskii's message of "Sat, 06 Dec 2003 11:38:32 +0200") User-Agent: Gnus/5.1003 (Gnus v5.10.3) Emacs/21.3.50 (gnu/linux) X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - ns5.tangramltd.com X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - gnu.org X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - jurta.org 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:18504 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:18504 "Eli Zaretskii" writes: >> From: Juri Linkov >> Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2003 03:27:37 +0200 >> >> I believe this enhancement can easily be done with the existing Info >> format. > > And having spent many hours hacking makeinfo and the stand-alone Info > reader, I believe, like Karl does, that doing that is a complete waste > of time and effort. I appreciate your efforts and time you spent on hacking Info readers. But I think more improvements are possible without changing the current Info format. > I think we basically have reached the point where > no significant improvements could be done to Info without breaking > something somewhere else. Evene the relatively simple change such as > Info-hide-node-references caused a series of unintended consequences > that we haven't fixed yet to the full extent. I think the main question with improvements is whether they are good for most users or not. Improvements that cause some troubles (e.g. Info-hide-node-references) could be turned off by default. And users that want to use them should be ready to have some problems. > Isn't the experience drawn from that experiment enough for us to > understand the simple truth that > > THOU SHALT NOT CHANGE INFO ANYMORE But I'd rather say that THERE'S PLENTY OF ROOM FOR INFO IMPROVEMENT And I mean improvement of Info readers, not improvement of the Info format that might break something. I think that even in its current form the Info format is very useful. > I say, if we want a better reader of the docs, let's invest our energy > in an XML-based reader. I see there is an opinion that XML format will solve all problems of Info format. But I must warn that XML IS NOT A PANACEA It solves some problems but introduces other problems. Just to name one of its problems: even such a trivial operation as text search on a whole Info document (key `s' in Info readers) in XML will cause several problems: to search a continuous text split by XML tags (e.g. the text "abc" in the "abc") a whole XML document should be rendered to its textual representation before search, or some complex rules should be used to collect text squashed between many XML elements. -- http://www.jurta.org/emacs/