Re: Latest texi/info to www

[Harry Putnam]

Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

> On 17 Jul 2001, Harry Putnam wrote:
 
> > I'll probably be rebuffed for being lazy but I wondered if there
> > is a current tool that is similar to info2www or some other
> > converter that is being mainted currently.

> > Seems like very hand functionality to be able to browse info
> > remotely with a common web browser.

> Texinfo supports conversion to HTML since a year and a half ago.
> Get texinfo-4.0.tar.gz, and you have it.
 
> However, that version can only produce a single large HTML file,
> which might not be convenient for large document that are intended
> to be read remotely.  For that, you could try the latest prerelease
> version 4.0c, available from here:

>   ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo.tar.gz
> 

Thanks Eli.  I think I may have expressed myself poorly.  I knew about
html converting capability and about texi2html.  However I understood
these methods did a basic conversion and then you had an html file you
could put on the internet.  Not `on the fly'.

Here are some snippets from a redhat list (about a week ago) that
convey the query a little better.  Particularly Michaels reply in the
middle.

address@hidden:
Michael Writes

[...]

> While we're at it, I'm still using the old "info2www" converter
> package for browsing info files via local web server. I haven't
> seen an update for that one. And neither has it been packaged
> anywhere. Does anyone know of any alternatives to either "pinfo"
> or "info2www"?
> 

Harry Replies:

Texi/texinfo files are readily convertable to html I believe.
Couldn't you just convert the standard info file sources (texi/texinfo)
files?  There is the -html flag and texi2html.

Not sure if info files have the sources on the src.rpm but I'm sure
the fsf and gnu.org have them on line if your dig around a bit.

Type texi<tab><tab> at a  bash prompt to see if you have it installed.
Its part of tetex-1.0.7-15.

[...] snipped Description from man page.

I've heard rumors of an info2html converter that would make source
texi files unnecessary to get the html files too but not sure about
that one.

========================================

Michael replies:

Woah, this means I would have to create my own distribution of html
files for all texi files found in any source rpm. =:-O

On the contrary, info2www converts the gzipped info files as found
in /usr/share/info/ on-the-fly, and also understands the info-dir.

end redhat list messages
========================================

texinfo-4.0-20:

Now looking through the `info texinfo' file briefly
using `i' search and `html' or `convert' it is not clear at all if the
above capability is available.  Before digging into this more
extensively, let me ask if there is capability there of generating
html files on the fly from the /usr/info/*.gz files, like is possible
with info2www.

The most recent copy of info2www I found is quite old:

[...]
# info2www - Gateway between GNU Info nodes and WWW
$id = '$Id: info2www,v 1.2.2.9 1996/07/02 08:44:12 lmdrsm Exp $ ';
[...]

So I guess the real question is whether the functionality included in
the alpha package you  point to is capable of generating html pages
from /usr/info/*.gz files on the fly.  Or whether one would need to
provide thier own CGI driven or similar method to be able to browse
info remotely from the normal installed info files.