From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: On being web-friendly and why info must die Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 04:20:07 -0500 Message-ID: References: <20141205123549.GA29331@thyrsus.com> <87mw72lyzs.fsf@earlgrey.lan> <20141205190925.GA5067@thyrsus.com> <20141206061019.GC14890@thyrsus.com> <83ppbx1aag.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1417944042 29207 80.91.229.3 (7 Dec 2014 09:20:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2014 09:20:42 +0000 (UTC) Cc: esr@thyrsus.com, cwebber@dustycloud.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Dec 07 10:20:35 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 1XxY14-000630-D4 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 07 Dec 2014 10:20:34 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57442 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxY13-0005yc-OJ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 07 Dec 2014 04:20:33 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44321) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxY0u-0005vh-6T for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 07 Dec 2014 04:20:25 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxY0i-0006wt-6B for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 07 Dec 2014 04:20:24 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:42422) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxY0h-0006rb-10 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 07 Dec 2014 04:20:12 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxY0d-0000Fh-OH; Sun, 07 Dec 2014 04:20:07 -0500 In-reply-to: <83ppbx1aag.fsf@gnu.org> (message from Eli Zaretskii on Sat, 06 Dec 2014 09:56:23 +0200) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e 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:179245 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] Unfortunately, I don't remember the conclusions of our previous discussion of replacing Info format. Maybe someone can look for it in the archives. > In sum, switching to a Web browser as the means to read documentation > is a regression. I agree completely. Using HTML instead of Info format would be a big improvement, since HTML is more flexible and can represent a wider range of contents. However, unless we have an HTML-based Info reader with the same handy features that the current Info reader has (for instance, the commands n, p, u, m, i, SPC, search through multiple nodes), it would also be a big step backward. Last time I tried browsing HTML generated from Texinfo, it was inconvenient compared with Info. It corresponded to the contents of the Texinfo file, but its navigation was not like Info. To get the benefit of HTML and avoid the loss, we need * A good way to represent a manual's info nodes in HTML, including all their structure such that it can be extracted mechanically. I suppose this is not very hard, if you know HTML better than I do, and maybe it has been done already. Has it been? * An HTML-based Info reader (can be done in Emacs) which implements these commands as well as the usual HTML browsing features. (Of course, these commands won't be available to someone using an ordinary browser to look at the same HTML files, but that is out of our hands.) You could think of this as a special-purpose browser for web pages of documenation. If we succeed in recreating the features of Info in HTML, we would have no reason to keep using the Info format. Then we could use other source formats (which can't generate Info). Not all GNU packages would have to switch, but individual projects COULD switch. Do people want to work on this project for HTML? -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.