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Re: [O] setting local variables


From: Nicolas Goaziou
Subject: Re: [O] setting local variables
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2017 00:02:21 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.2 (gnu/linux)

Eric Abrahamsen <address@hidden> writes:

> Oh I don't think it's about shortcomings, just about having a version
> that's tweaked specifically for writing Emacs manuals. I _really_ want
> my packages to have info manuals, and I _really_ don't want to learn how
> to write texinfo. I saw Rasmus' Org manual in org, and it looked like a
> lot of work. Then I noticed that the Magit manuals used this
> texinfo-plus thing, and it seemed good enough.

I think "ox-texinfo" is (almost) able to write Emacs manuals.

IMO, you are comparing oranges and apples. Org's manual is historically
written as a (very convoluted) pure Texinfo document, with many macros
and different authors. Trying to convert it to Org for an Org to Texinfo
process is bound to be painful. OTOH, Magit's manual is probably more
straightforward, i.e., written as an Org document from the beginning,
with simpler requirements.

In both cases, you cannot eschew learning a bit of Texinfo, if only for
the various indices commands and the installation part in the Info
directory.

> I think what might be nice would be to have another exporter, derived
> from ox-texinfo, specifically for writing Emacs manuals, that helps
> authors conform to the Emacs manual conventions. The way texinfo-plus
> handles lists of keybindings/user options/etc is nice, and it appears to
> set up the indexes for you, you only have to add concept index entries
> manually.

AFAIU, the way texinfo-plus handles lists of ... is certainly nice, but
it's unrelated to Emacs manual conventions. It helps authors conform
Magit's author conventions. Those are fine, but I'm pretty sure not all
Emacs manuals follow them (Org doesn't, obviously).

> Does that sound feasible? It would be great if this was available out of
> the box.

Even though such specialized back-ends are a good thing, I don't think
Org needs another Texinfo back-end in core, however.

"ox-texinfo.el" is really getting better. It is very versatile so it can
bend to almost any convention.

I won't pretend it makes learning Texinfo useless, though, because you
need to learn it to write good manuals. The devil is in the details, and
those are sometimes located at the Texinfo level.

Regards,



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