* Sat 2000-08-05 Robert Kiesling <kiesling@mainmatter.com>
* Message-Id: <200008060119.VAA00922@aardvark.mainmatter.com>
| jari.aalto@poboxes.com wrote:
|
| > -- Keeps FAQ as plain text, normal "white paper", or as I call
| > it, in Technical format (TF)
|
| I like DocBook tags, because then it's easy to tell the difference
| between a citation, a program name, a URL, and some code, without
| having to rely human intervention, or rexexps. Even if the
| stylesheets aren't -- quite -- yet equal to manual editing, a
| corresponding plain-text version isn't hard to make.
Yes, I thought hard what format to choose and my ideal goal
was eventually to use SGML (later DocBook). But then it sounded so
much alike as what Emacs developers preferred, the info-format,
Hm, erm.
The source of my inconvenience for all "generators" out there is that
you have to learn the language syntax first and use the markup it
provides.
I truly hate markup, because it means I have to edit the document by
hand adding markup here and there to control the layout. I wanted to
read it "as is" and format "as is" without any markup, or as little
markup as possible.
[sidenote]
Wheez, I like WORD that hides the internal representation for me,
but WORD of course is not an option in multi-platform world.
I also dislike taking diffs oo documents that use markup, because
they are not so "clear".
Any markup may scare off any potential readers,
that know how to send diff files: Currently they can correct
the plain-text and I have easy time to apply patches to the original.
So, markup is fine if there is known community (Linux DocBook) or the
author hand-mades the changes, but markup is not encouraging people to
make documentation changes by tehmselves and pass them to authors in
diff format.
I agree that DocBook is good, but Hm, Eh, you know, people are lazy,
having to install all kind of software that does not work in every
platform (Does docBook in win32?) is too much trouble sometimes.
[I haven't evaluated docBook for ages, so excuse my current
level of knowledge]
| > -- Have Emacs minor-mode handle formatting the FAQ and generating
|
| > TOC, renumbering heading etc. Emacs is crossplatform editor.
|
| What minor mode is that?
The package is tinytf.el and included in the tiny-tools-beta.zip
http://poboxes.com/jari.aalto/emacs-tiny-tools.html
http://poboxes.com/jari.aalto/emacs-tiny-tools-beta.zip
tinytf.el can be used "as is" to keep text documents in shape. But
the format can also be fed to the text to html converter I mentioned
about. ( t2html.pl )
More about Emacs and Crossplatform development using Cygwin
(unix) utilities, CVS, RCS, Version control in general at
http://poboxes.com/jari.aalto/emacs-elisp.html
Jari
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