Re: Manual pages

       From: Andrew Valencia <vandys@cisco.com>
       Subject: Re: Manual pages

> a text formatting system whose ability to generate readable output from
> source approximates a "cat" of a file. groff was rejected on this basis. I
> have little experience with TeX (did I capitalize it correctly?) but I seem
> to recall that it was HUGE.
 
  Tex *is* huge, but that's only needed for camera ready output. The "makeinfo"
program is pretty small. I processes the .texi source to be an ASCII flat
file called an "info' file. Then use use the "info" program, (also small or
as part of emacs). Info is a pusedo hypertext based reader, you cam search for
things too. Much easier and smaller than the [ntg]roff mess. Just compiling
groff is a pain in the ass. (it breaks G++ weekly it seems)

> pages are meant to be viewed quickly, so whatever technology we use should
 
  Info pages are *always* processed, and can be gzipped. The best thing is that
if the VSTa docs are in texinfo format, we'd be able to easily produce
multiple outputs from *one* source. For an example of HTML produced from
Texinfo, look at my Home Page URL=http://darkstar.cygnus.com/rob.html under
the "DejaGnu" link. That's the DejaGnu manual in HTML as made by texi2html.
(still needs a little hand tweaking) Also look at http://www.cygnus.com/ for
other examples.

        - rob -
Received on Tue May 10 08:22:25 1994