Re: [help-texinfo] Formatting syntax rules

[Karl Berry]

    I might decide to put all quotations in a different
    font or add `\vskips' around all address@hidden'.  

This is one case where macros might actually work.  I think you could define
@macro beginsyntax
@quotation
@end macro

And
@macro endsyntax
@end quotation
@end macro

and have flexibility for the future.  If I'm understanding the issue.
Anyway, just an idea.

    spacing before the alternatives,

For simplicity, I think I would choose to do what Knuth does, i.e., not
aligning the right hand sides, or different alternatives.
    
If you wanted to line up the rhs's, that could (presumably) be done with
@multicolumn.

    i.e., following the `\vert'.  

Ah, that's another command that would need to be added.  @result{} or
@expansion{} is a good enough replacement for the \longrightarrow.

The hanging indentation on second and subsequent lines of a rule seems
problematic, though.  Hmm.  Maybe just @indent would work, although it's
not the prettiest.

    One is, that the one that recursively updates all nodes and menus in
    all input files writes some erroneous text in my top-level file that
    I have to remove by hand.

If feasible, you might report this to address@hidden (which is not me :).

Cheers,
karl