Re: Changes to Texinfo DTD

[Juri Linkov]

Nic Ferrier <address@hidden> writes:
> "Robert J. Chassell" <address@hidden> writes:
>> Nic Ferrier <address@hidden> wrote
>>    Method 2.
>>    a) use a command line XSLT tool such as xsltproc (from the GNOME
>>       libxml2 project: http://www.xmlsoft.org) to chunk AND style to HTML
>>       the output of makeinfo --xml.  
>>       The styling would be as method 1, part c.
>> 
>> How is this different from the existing `makeinfo --html' which also
>> does chunking and styling to HTML?
>> 
>> Without knowing much about `xsltproc', the method scares me.  Does
>> this method enable me to use keybindings in Mozilla to navigate via
>> regexp searching within a document that is spread over multiple files?
>> If so, good and I stop being scared.  Indeed, then the suggestion
>> becomes very attractive.  But if not, it is a distraction.
>
> It's different because now one can attach javascript to elements on
> the page whevever one needs it. The existing HTML doesn't do that,
> nor should it because it has an existing purpose.

BTW, do you know that HTML files generated from Texinfo files already
have keys for navigation?  The <a> tag has an attribute "accesskey"
which assigns keys to "u" (up), "n" (next), "p" (prev), "[1-5]" (menu).
These keys can be pressed e.g. in Mozilla as M-u, M-n, M-p, M-[1-5]
to navigate to the corresponding HTML node.

There is another useful scheme for navigation in HTML by specifying
a "link" tag in meta section, e.g. <link rel="next" href="next.html" />,
but currently this is not generated in info HTML files.

> The XSLT solution isn't the end. To support regex searches some sort
> of webapplication IS needed as well. But XSLT is exactly the best
> choice for turning the Texinfo XML into something that would work with
> a webapp.

Some indexing programs like swish++ is needed here.  BTW, this was
recently suggested to me, when I asked about searching a mail archive.
I don't know what indexing programs can index info files.

-- 
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/