From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Robert J. Chassell" Newsgroups: gmane.comp.tex.texinfo.pretest,gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: A new online publishing tool for Texinfo documents. Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 19:21:27 -0500 (EST) Sender: texinfo-pretest-bounces@texinfo.org Message-ID: References: <8765hcf7q8.fsf@kanga.tapsellferrier.co.uk> <3FC3A11D.8040408@yahoo.com> Reply-To: bob@rattlesnake.com NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1069806665 23599 80.91.224.253 (26 Nov 2003 00:31:05 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 00:31:05 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: texinfo-pretest-bounces@texinfo.org Wed Nov 26 01:31:02 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from consort.superb.net ([209.61.216.22] helo=f7.net) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AOnaA-0003fe-00 for ; Wed, 26 Nov 2003 01:31:02 +0100 Original-Received: from consort.superb.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by f7.net (8.11.7-20030920/8.11.7) with ESMTP id hAQ0Uqt16740; Tue, 25 Nov 2003 19:30:52 -0500 Original-Received: from rattlesnake.com (megalith.rattlesnake.com [140.186.114.245]) by f7.net (8.11.7-20030920/8.11.7) with ESMTP id hAQ0Umt16727 for ; Tue, 25 Nov 2003 19:30:49 -0500 Original-Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.115) Tue, 25 Nov 2003 19:21:27 -0500 (EST) Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org, texinfo-pretest@texinfo.org In-reply-to: <3FC3A11D.8040408@yahoo.com> (message from Kevin Rodgers on Tue, 25 Nov 2003 11:36:13 -0700) X-BeenThere: texinfo-pretest@texinfo.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Texinfo development and discussion. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: texinfo-pretest-bounces@texinfo.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.comp.tex.texinfo.pretest:1171 gmane.emacs.devel:18125 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:18125 Kevin Rodgers asked Why can't ange-ftp, tramp, or http-get be used to retrieve remote Info files for local browsing within Emacs? Because all the processing is done on the local machine, so for some actions, like navigating via search the whole file must be downloaded. Info can have a slow connection between the display and the rendering engine, but presumes a fast connection between the rendering engine and the source of the Info document. On the other hand, a Web browser usually has a fast connection between its display and the rendering engine -- it is very hard to use a mouse with a slow connection, and commonly used Web browsers use mice -- but in most cases, a Web browser has a slow connection between the rendering engine and the source of the HTML: the bandwidth is that of a telephone dial up line. People with wider bandwidths make up a small fraction of the over all Internet population. The idea for this new tool, among other goals, is to cause the computer holding the source of the HTML to do some of the work on the document, such as search through multiple files that make up the document. This requires a CGI script. The Info system could be enhanced to do the same -- at least, I think so. Can anyone think why, if some of the work were done by the the device that provides the Info document, you could not run Info remotely over a slow connection between its rendering engine and the source of the Info document? The point with this proposal is that currently, HTML fails as a documentation source in its most common situation, which is with a dial up. The goal is to make an HTML expression of a Texinfo manual do as well as Info did back in the 1980s, at least. (Also, in commonly used Web browsers, to do index searches, to do `next', `prev', `up', and `last' movements with default keybindings rather than depend on mice, and maybe to enhance W3 mode or other Emacs mode, to be a good browser.) A different goal is to enhance Info to enable people to read documents remotely, when `remote' means `low bandwidth connection between renderer and Info doc source' rather than `low bandwidth connection between display and renderer'. I doubt this second goal is as important as the first. -- Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.teak.cc bob@rattlesnake.com _______________________________________________ Texinfo home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ texinfo-pretest@texinfo.org http://ff0.org/mailman/listinfo/texinfo-pretest