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Re: CSS file for texinfo HTML output


From: Per Bothner
Subject: Re: CSS file for texinfo HTML output
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:22:45 -0800
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.5.0



On 02/10/2016 11:58 PM, Gavin Smith wrote:
As the author of DomTerm (http://domterm.org), I think that would make
a great framework for an info program: It's a general-purpose terminal
emulator, based on web technologies.  My idea is for the info program
to check if it is running under DomTerm, and if so it "loads" the html
document into an iframe of the same DomTerm instance.  The info program
can use escape sequences to communicate with the documentation iframe.
For example, it can trap clicks and search for the correct manual.

It would be great to have a graphical documentation reading program
used for reading locally installed files. If someone could create such
a thing using DomTerm, that would be great.

The advantages of using DomTerm (compared to pointing a browser at an
HTML file) include:
+ You don't have to switch context or window, if you're using DomTerm
as your normal terminal emulator - it can re-use your terminal window.
+ You can have a bi-directional protocol between the browser (sub-)window
and the 'info' front-end where the latter handles searching for the html file.

I think a graphical info reader using DomTerm is pretty synergystic
with the GSOC project ("html-reading info") I proposed: If we enhance
info so it can read html files, that gives us the "front-end",
including the framework for finding documentation files.

In other words: the info program would process command-line arguments, and then
look for an html file using the same search mechanism as for info-format files.
(The simplest is just put html files in the same directories as info files.)
Then the info program does one of:
(1) If the current terminal is DomTerm, then info sends the html file (or may 
just
a section corresponding to a single node) to the DomTerm program.  Keystrokes
can handled either by the info program (which would then send escape sequences
to DomTerm to update the display), or they can be handled by a JavaScript event
handler - I'm not sure which is preferable.
(2) If the current terminal is *not* DomTerm, then the info program converts
the html of a node plain-text old-info-format (as described in my GSoC
proposal), then uses the existing info logic to display it,
--
        --Per Bothner
address@hidden   http://per.bothner.com/



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