From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: terminal escapes in Info files? Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 15:10:55 +0900 Organization: The XEmacs Project Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <87u15rb6hc.fsf@tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <200310281746.h9SHk2915693@f7.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1067494401 27749 80.91.224.253 (30 Oct 2003 06:13:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 06:13:21 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Thu Oct 30 07:13:19 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 1AF63b-0005tb-00 for ; Thu, 30 Oct 2003 07:13:19 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AF63b-0000Ik-00 for ; Thu, 30 Oct 2003 07:13:19 +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 1AF62x-0000yC-M0 for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Thu, 30 Oct 2003 01:12:39 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AF62A-0000xO-5u for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 30 Oct 2003 01:11:50 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AF61e-0000jf-8d for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 30 Oct 2003 01:11:49 -0500 Original-Received: from [130.158.98.109] (helo=tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AF61V-0000hE-Sy for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 30 Oct 2003 01:11:10 -0500 Original-Received: from steve by tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 1AF61I-0005rh-00; Thu, 30 Oct 2003 15:10:56 +0900 Original-To: bob@rattlesnake.com In-Reply-To: (Robert J. Chassell's message of "Thu, 30 Oct 2003 01:13:00 +0000 (UTC)") User-Agent: Gnus/5.1002 (Gnus v5.10.2) XEmacs/21.5 (celeriac, linux) 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:17608 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:17608 >>>>> "Robert" == Robert J Chassell writes: Stefan> But I don't see why the Info format is superior to the Stefan> HTML markup language, ... Robert> By default, HTML does not ... We're not talking about "default" HTML. True, people using normal browsers will continue to "enjoy" the "Windows experience". Too bad for them. But there is no reason why HTML produced by a documentation system shouldn't _require_ (and enforce, by automatically producing them from eg Texinfo source) The only real disadvantage vis-a-vis traditional Texinfo is the verbosity. I think the technical problems are reasonably straightforward; we can have decent Info-style presentation of automatically-produced HTML within Info or Emacs. My guess is that HTML provides all the features needed to provide a target language isomorphic to Info, and it would be at most a couple days' work to port Emacs's Info reader to such a language. The standalone Info reader might or might not be much harder. I have no idea how hard it would be to get makeinfo to produce it. (Not volunteering; I'm perfectly happy with existing Info. But it looks to be easy enough that anybody who advocates HTML should be required to produce such an isomorphic spec and software that provides all the features that Info currently does.) Hm ... I suppose texinfo XML provides all this already? -- Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Ask not how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software.