* Texinfo
@ 2009-12-11 1:51 Robert J. Chassell
2009-12-11 3:48 ` Texinfo Stephen J. Turnbull
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Robert J. Chassell @ 2009-12-11 1:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: emacs-devel
Texinfo is not as sexy as HTML
True. Texinfo has to produce HTML to become as sexy as HTML.
Texinfo can produce 10 or 11 output formats and can be produced
from DocBook. One output format is HTML; another is PDF. Yet
another is plain text. Also, there are the two originals:
DVI (DeVice Independent) and Info (plus a bunch more).
The format of Texinfo may be old, but its outputs are as modern as HTML,
DVI, and text.
--
Robert J. Chassell
bob@gnu.org bob@rattlesnake.com
http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread* Texinfo
2009-12-11 1:51 Texinfo Robert J. Chassell
@ 2009-12-11 3:48 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2009-12-13 16:22 ` Texinfo Richard Stallman
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Stephen J. Turnbull @ 2009-12-11 3:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Robert J. Chassell; +Cc: emacs-devel
Robert J. Chassell writes:
> Texinfo is not as sexy as HTML
This really isn't a problem, because as you point out people can
automatically transform to HTML. I don't know why people bring it up.
> The format of Texinfo may be old,
This is a problem for acceptance by developers, and so somewhat
important. However, it should be possible to automatically convert
(eg) reStructuredText to Texinfo as well as vice versa. (You might
have to design an appropriate dialect of reST, but it's designed for
that.)
The real problem with Texinfo, however, is that it is a markup
language whose translator is a *compiler*. This is not well suited to
online resources, whether wikis or help facilities built into
programs. Contribute a Texinfo interpreter to Python, and you might
have an attractive proposition for the Bazaar developers. But without
that, you would have to preprocess the Python source; it couldn't be
used as written (if the help strings were in Texinfo). This is a
nonstarter.
I think a better alternative would be to keep Bazaar documentation in
a dialect of reST (or other suitable structured text) and provide a
docutils writer to produce Texinfo from that.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Texinfo
2009-12-11 3:48 ` Texinfo Stephen J. Turnbull
@ 2009-12-13 16:22 ` Richard Stallman
2009-12-14 0:06 ` Texinfo Martin Pool
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Richard Stallman @ 2009-12-13 16:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Stephen J. Turnbull, Martin Pool; +Cc: bob, emacs-devel
I think a better alternative would be to keep Bazaar documentation in
a dialect of reST (or other suitable structured text) and provide a
docutils writer to produce Texinfo from that.
Generating the Texinfo sources from some other format is fine. The
GNU standards don't say that you need to edit manuals in Texinfo, only
that they should be available in Texinfo format.
Martin, how about it?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread* Re: Texinfo
2009-12-13 16:22 ` Texinfo Richard Stallman
@ 2009-12-14 0:06 ` Martin Pool
2009-12-15 13:12 ` Texinfo Richard Stallman
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Martin Pool @ 2009-12-14 0:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: rms; +Cc: Stephen J. Turnbull, bob, emacs-devel
2009/12/14 Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>:
> I think a better alternative would be to keep Bazaar documentation in
> a dialect of reST (or other suitable structured text) and provide a
> docutils writer to produce Texinfo from that.
>
> Generating the Texinfo sources from some other format is fine. The
> GNU standards don't say that you need to edit manuals in Texinfo, only
> that they should be available in Texinfo format.
>
> Martin, how about it?
Hi,
I agree we should produce a Texinfo doc. We have a bug to track this
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/219334> and people have suggested
some tools that may be able to do it. If somebody who loves Texinfo
will tell me "run tool X with command line Y and it produces good
output" I'll put it in to the Makefile.
--
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Texinfo
2009-12-14 0:06 ` Texinfo Martin Pool
@ 2009-12-15 13:12 ` Richard Stallman
2009-12-15 22:09 ` Texinfo Martin Pool
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Richard Stallman @ 2009-12-15 13:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Martin Pool; +Cc: stephen, bob, emacs-devel
I agree we should produce a Texinfo doc. We have a bug to track this
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/219334> and people have suggested
some tools that may be able to do it. If somebody who loves Texinfo
will tell me "run tool X with command line Y and it produces good
output" I'll put it in to the Makefile.
You may need to do more than that. If your current doc format doesn't
have a converter to Texinfo, you need to either write one, or use
another doc format.
What doc source format do you use now?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2009-12-15 22:09 UTC | newest]
Thread overview: 6+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2009-12-11 1:51 Texinfo Robert J. Chassell
2009-12-11 3:48 ` Texinfo Stephen J. Turnbull
2009-12-13 16:22 ` Texinfo Richard Stallman
2009-12-14 0:06 ` Texinfo Martin Pool
2009-12-15 13:12 ` Texinfo Richard Stallman
2009-12-15 22:09 ` Texinfo Martin Pool
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