From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Robert J. Chassell" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Texinfo/info: scrolling images (Re: Gtk patch version 3, part 1) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:41:02 +0000 (UTC) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200301011944.h01Jim0U011400@stubby.bodenonline.com> <5xu1gpu4do.fsf@kfs2.cua.dk> <200301111950.h0BJomH04190@rum.cs.yale.edu> Reply-To: bob@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1042382470 19585 80.91.224.249 (12 Jan 2003 14:41:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:41:10 +0000 (UTC) Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 18XjIS-00055V-00 for ; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:41:08 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 18XjPU-0003X6-00 for ; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:48:24 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 18XjJT-0001Yz-02 for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 09:42:11 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10.13) id 18XjIg-0000u1-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 09:41:22 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10.13) id 18XjIb-0000hX-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 09:41:19 -0500 Original-Received: from megalith.rattlesnake.com ([140.186.114.245] helo=localhost) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 18XjIR-0000JC-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 09:41:08 -0500 Original-Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.114) Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:41:02 +0000 (UTC) Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org In-reply-to: (message from Karl Eichwalder on Sun, 12 Jan 2003 06:05:06 +0100) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:10695 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:10695 "Robert J. Chassell" writes: > The images are built from plain ASCII characters, of course, but they > are there. Karl Eichwalder responds: That's something different. lilypond authors want to document music scores and at times I want to talk about graphical interfaces (screenshots). ASCII representations of such images are a) different from the graphical ones and b) highly time consuming to "draw". Yes, the ASCII representations are often different. In the case of music, I think you would want to use the `letter' notation that (if I remember Lilypond rightly) users type in order to input information so that Lilypond can create the nicely typeset output that it produces. The design question is: to what should you listen when you should not or cannot view the typeset output and do not have or should not use a haptic `feel pad'? And yes, the ASCII representations are highly time consuming to "draw". This is a major motivation for you to use a format such as Texinfo that requires such representations. Without the motivation, sighted people tend to write only for sighted readers who are not situationally blind. This is why LaTeX is not used as the basis for Texinfo. We tried to make the change more than a decade ago. I made many experiments. Yes, you can write a LaTeX `deep-representation' file that produces good Info `surface-expression' output. But -- and this is the problem -- often enough, people do not write such files. Instead, they use LaTeX' marvelous typesetting capabilities to create papers that typeset nicely, and which are impossible for someone reading over a slow connection or who is listening. XML and DocBook suffer the same failing. At other places, scrolling images is also very important: I'd like to look at a scan and an OCRed text side by side, that's just 1 example. I agree, that is an important action. At the same time, please remember that the blind are major users of OCR. Please design your system so that you can listen to a scan and to an OCRed text, as well as look at them. > If you drive a car, you are `situationally blind' and should not look > at images in a document, but only listen to it. I'm not a car driver anymore ;) That may be very good (I don't know your personal situation; but it would be good for the rest of us if fewer people drove cars). Unfortunately, many other people do drive. Others work in factories where they are supposed to be paying attention to their work. Enhance info in a manner that it can hold alternative representations of the same contents ... If you really mean Texinfo, this feature has existed for more than a decade. What is wrong with the current feature? If you mean to enhance the GNU Emacs Info reader to provide highly typeset images for some viewers -- that is a good idea so long as sighted, non-driving viewers do not write their documentation so that it cannot be read by a blind person or over a very slow line (even though I mostly enjoy a reasonably fast connection, sometimes it is very, very slow). Info could be made more like W3M mode in Emacs 21. W3M is a Web browsing mode in which you can toggle images on or off. -- Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.teak.cc bob@gnu.org