On 2013-12-05, Jaime Villate <villate at fe.up.pt> wrote:
> On 05-12-2013 15:25, Leo Butler wrote:
>> My suggestion would be to replace the existing Perl build_index.pl
>> with a bit of elisp code to run the relevant bits of info-mode and
>> export the data structure in a format suitable for maxima-index.lisp.
> I'm in favor of this proposal. The current method is too complicated,
> takes too much time and (at least in my case) it is frustrating not
> being able to look up the manual after all that trouble.
Can you explain what you mean that you are not able to look up the manual?
> Also, as a translator I have given up the translation job because it
> is very hard to write in a foreign language without being able to use
> UTF8 characters. Not to mention that the PDF version of the
> documentation produced by Texinfo is ugly. I could do much better withs
> a simple Wiki.
Be that as it may, the proposal to use Emacs info-mode to parse .info
files won't affect those difficulties, since Texinfo is still the basis
of the documentation.
> Why do the binary files that describe() opens have to be rebuilt by
> everyone? Couldn't they be placed in the Sourceforge files area for
> those who are not willing to spend the two hours it takes to build
> them in the Raspberry Pi?
Well, at present the documentation indices are built by make dist-gzip
and packaged in the tarball (and rpms and presumably other packages).
By the way, what part of the process takes a long time? Is it running
makeinfo to produce .info or build_index.pl to produce the indices?
Just curious.
best
Robert Dodier