Re: HTML for docs? (was Re: CF: proposed docs (longish))

["Mark Wedel" <mwedel@pyramid.com>]

On Jul 2,  9:34pm, Klaus Elsbernd wrote:
> Subject: Re: HTML for docs? (was Re: CF: proposed docs (longish))
>
> I don't think so(see http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larso/spoiler2/spoiler.shtml).
>

 The impression I get from Lars message is that he rewrote the various scripts
that process the output to generate HTML.  He did not use a latex->html
conversion program.  This is a major difference.


> As I said it before, I don't think that it is 'very' usefull, having
> documentation in html. I know, that it is modern to have them. I won't be
> unmodern, I like to 'sync with time', but most of the time, the docs will
> be printed :-(.
> As you can see, Lars Henrik Bøler Olafsen <larso@ifi.uio.no> made a very
> nice conversion within days, or minutes :-).

 As said, that was a conversion of the spoiler processing scripts.  That case
is a bit easier, because most of the spoiler information is generated from
output of the program.  Most of the other docs are much more likely to be
generated from human input.

> I although use LaTeX since years, and I have no trouble writing small
> text in LaTeX. But I have many difficults, in writing 'blinking buttons',
> 'running texts' and other features of WWW-Browser (and I don't know, if
> this feature is only available on this version of the browser). And all
> this features won't be needed to this extent within crossfire docs. (Imho.)
> (It's not as difficult for me, as I wrote, because it's my job, but for
> many lusers. At least in our environment.)

 And as an example, I am mostly opposite.  I can write HTML code, but can not
write in tex/latex.  I won't dispute that some people only know tex, and others
only know HTML.  I would just venture that more are/will know HTML than latex.
 However, that said, at present time, I will take the docs in most whatever it
is written in - this is the authors preferance.  I just think HTML is a good
choice for now/the future.

>
> Someone mentioned, that LaTeX is not running on all platforms. I know of
> no major platform, where no TeX is running (especially under unix). But I
> know of serveral platforms not running netscape (if you use their speciall
> table support)
>

 But compiler tex/latex is hardly a simple task.  Certainly, there are
platforms where netscape is not available (but mosaic is available in source
format.)  I don't know if the latest mosaic handles tables yet, however.

> Beside that. There will always be some code/shell-scripts in awk, perl
> lisp or whatever, to generate parts (the stat/wapon/amour/... tables),
> which can produce either TeX-Code. (And they can produce html too :-))
> So you have to combine many tools, to generate a documentation. This task
> is not easy, and probably will not be in the near future. So you need
> someone, which knows all, or most of the tools. And if this person knows
> LaTeX, it would produce better output.

Apparantly, Lars was able to convert/make new scripts to generate the spoiler
information in 6 hours.  I am not sure what other scripts are really out there.

 As a quick summary, here are my thoughts:

 HTML is good because it is fairly easy to learn, pretty standard, viewing
tools are available on a good many machines.

 If people actually write new docs and submit them, I will take them if they
are in html, latex, postscript, whatever.  Docs in whatever format are better
than no docs at all.

 Even if docs are written in HTML we can still easily generate postscript
versions of those files, and distribute those who lack HTML tools or want a
hard copy.

 The only real reason I can see to use latex is if the author prefers it.  From
a user standpoint, we can do everything in HTML format as we can in latex.
 Only if people are dealing with the source format, it shouldn't make a
difference.


-- 
 --Mark