Re: Emacs setup assistants

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> I'm OK with using anything, as long as I can get started on writing
> the assistants soon.  Converting from one special tag to another
> should be mechanically possible, eventually.

We're kinda talking about (at least) two things at the same time,
here.

1) Embedding actions into the manuals
2) Doing setup assistants

These two things really don't have all that much to do with each
other.  The Emacs manuals are written in TeXinfo and converted into
info and TeX for browsing online and offline.  Assistants are simply
online constructs.  The reason for writing assistants in (something
like) TeXinfo isn't because they would appear in the manuals (that'd
be both awkward and not very helpful), but because TeXinfo is a
language that Emacs developers know, and it's easy and convenient to
write in.

So all this talk about @ignore stuff is nice for 1), but is pretty
irrelevant for 2).  The assistant parser might be an extension of the
texinfo.el parser, or perhaps it won't; we'll see.  But just go ahead
and write an assistant, and I'll hack up a parser and renderer.  :-)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen