Re: Latest texi/info to www

[Harry Putnam]

"Eli Zaretskii" <address@hidden> writes:

> > From: Harry Putnam <address@hidden>
> > Date: 18 Jul 2001 10:10:18 -0700
> > 
> > It hadn't occured to me that information would be lost in the
> > process. So I guess that could be a big stumbling block.  What kind of
> > things end up missing?
> 
> I will have hard time explaining that since you say don't know
> Texinfo.  Did you ever see a printed manual?  If you did, you know
> that meta-syntactic variables are typeset in a special cursive font,
> commands typed by the user in a slanted font, etc.  In Info, many of
> these attributes are lost or changed in a way that makes it impossible
> to reconstruct for HTML display

I have the printed Emacs manual so know exactly what you mean now.

So,maybe it isn't such a problem then.  If this change has already
occured in the info file then it won't matter at all.  What I'm
talking about here is a machine that converts the info file in as much
of its normal state as possible to a web page or pages.

The info pages are imminently usable for documentation reading as they
are.  I'm just talking about converting that output to standard html
browser use. With cross refs and foot notes as links or someting like
that.  Rendering the info like setup usable remotely.
 
> When HTML is produced from Texinfo, the HTML markup is made similar
> to what you get in the printed manual.  Info cannot support some of
> these attributes, so they produce no effect in Info.  Thus, HTML
> produced from Info will lack some of the markup.

Now I get the idea, but as pointed out, it won't be very relevant to
converting info to html, since the changes you mention are already
done.  The effects are not bad enough to make info a poor documentation
reading system.   So unless there is more lossage of important stuff
involved in converting info to html, then it seems that would be a
good thing.  A handy setup for browsing info from afar.