[bug #42641] Use makeinfo --html to generate HTML manuals from .texi documents

[Yavor Doganov]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?42641>

                 Summary: Use makeinfo --html to generate HTML manuals from
.texi documents
                 Project: GNUstep
            Submitted by: yavor
            Submitted on: Sun 29 Jun 2014 07:08:06 PM EEST
                Category: Makefiles
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: Change Request
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any

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Details:

I propose to switch to makeinfo for producing HTML variants of the Texinfo
manuals.  Rationale:

* texi2html is no longer developed
* the main texi2html author has been working on texinfo since quite some time
and the general advice is to migrate to texinfo (see [1])
* modern texinfo implements (almost) all the texi2html features
* texi2html is likely to be removed from some distros in the not-so-distant
future (see [2])
* makeinfo is more likely to be installed on a system
* one dependency less is generally a good thing

Cons: As makeinfo is more strict than texi2html, some documents which
previously built with texi2html will fail with makeinfo --html, just like they
are currently failing when building the .info file(s).  Since gnustep-make by
design ignores such errors, they are not fatal.  But I don't think that
documents with invalid Texinfo syntax are a valid reason to stick with
texi2html; they should be fixed instead.

[1] http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2013/05/msg01516.html

Please find attached the proposed patch implementing the switch.  texi2html as
a possibility is retained and can be used if required by the user.  I have
tested all four combinations (makeinfo/texi2html/split/monolithic) for the
common targets all/clean/install/uninstall.



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File Attachments:


-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun 29 Jun 2014 07:08:06 PM EEST  Name: makeinfo-html.patch  Size: 6kB  
By: yavor

<http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/download.php?file_id=31632>

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