At 09:41 AM 5/24/02 -0700, C Y wrote:
>
>--- Mike Clarkson <support@internetdiscovery.com> wrote:
>>
>> I've put a copy of a DOE-Maxima reference manual that I did
>> years ago up on
>>
>> http://starship.python.net/crew/mike/maxima
>>
>> Could those who are knowledgable about the Maxima documentation
>> give me some feedback on it.
>
>In a word - Wow. You have done some very nice work here.
Thanks.
>> It is fairly compete, and has the
>> advantage of being cross-referenced and multiply indexed.
>> It was laboriously compiled from the descrips files and the
>> usage files, and is set in a form of LaTeX that supports dvi, pdf
>> html and info. It may serve as a better starting point than the
>> current texinfo version.
>
>We need several opinions on this one - my initial impression is that
>this is worth serious consideration, but the problem is likely to be
>the describe format itself - it would be much better if we were able to
>maintain only one set of files for all the formats. Mike, would it be
>possible for you to send me the source code so I can look it over? And
>I'll also print out a copy to read over this weekend.
I'll send you a copy of the source, and I'll try to send a PDF.
This format is LaTexinfo which can generate info files, which I believe
is what DESCRIBE uses.I t also uses latex2html which makes a table of
lablels (labels.pl) which is also easy to parse for pointers the same
was as info. Also I think I have a texinfo->LaTeXinfo converter so that
if there were any sections of the current texinfo files that needed adding
to what I've done, it should be fairly simple to include them.
The version of LaTeXinfo is old and needs bringing up to date,
but is basically vaery similar to the LaTeX/info/dvi/pdf setup
that the Python documentation is written in. I may move things over
to that format just because it's being actively maintained.
Does anyone have the old example files (example/*.xmp)? My manual
hyperlinks to these files, but I can't find a copy on my disks.
If you have them, would you mind sending them as a tar by email?
Mike.