Re: Add support for generating HTML docs a` la PDF, etc., revision2

[Ralf Corsepius]

Am Sam, 2003-03-15 um 01.32 schrieb Alexandre Duret-Lutz:
> >>> "Richard" == Richard Dawe <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>  Richard> Hello.
> 
>  Richard> I was wondering what has happened regarding the patch
>  Richard> I sent to add support for generating HTML documents,
> 
> I agree with Ralf that taking over a commonly used target like
> we do is a bad idea w.r.t. backward compatibility.  Still, if we
> were to be picky about backward compatibility we would never add
> new features.
> 
> I was hoping someone would come with a cunning plan that pleases
> everybody.  I.e., a way to support html without breaking
> existing packages.  I'm not convinced this is possible, but who
> knows...  Otherwise I think we should go on and smooth the
> transition the best we can.
Given Richard's patch is essentially functional (I haven't tried it), I
think all that is required is to find a name for phony target, eg.
html-docs
html-am
am-html

or similar. Of cause this is not consistent with other similar PHONY
targets in automake, but ... may-be it's time to invent a new naming
convention 

The situation on "dvi", "info" probably is different, because they have
been used by automake for a long time and also seem to be covered by the
GNU-Standards. Of cause one could extend the GNU-Standards, but IMO it's
too late to do so wrt. "html".

> Also, Ralf mentioned that many Gnome packages use `html',

FYI: Running a find in my /usr/src/redhat/BUILD, containing a random set
of packages I recently re-built from source, shows these:

# find . -name html
./bonobo-activation-2.2.0/api-docs/html
./gnome-libs-1.4.1.2.90/libart_lgpl/doc/html
./gnome-libs-1.4.1.2.90/devel-docs/gnome/html
./gnome-libs-1.4.1.2.90/devel-docs/gnomeui/html
./gnome-libs-1.4.1.2.90/devel-docs/zvt/html
./gnome-libs-1.4.1.2.90/devel-docs/gnorba/html
./libgtkhtml-2.2.0/libgtkhtml/dom/html
./libgtkhtml-2.2.0/libgtkhtml/layout/html
./ncurses-5.3/doc/html
./vte-0.10.24/doc/reference/html
./Python-2.2.1/Doc/html

>  but I
> haven't had the time to look what they use it for and what
> happens to them with your patch.
The same applies to me.

Ralf