Re: Interactive hat. (Patch V2)

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Eli,

On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 09:39:48PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > > That's an unusual use of @itemx.  Beware: it could do something you
> > > didn't intend in some future version of Texinfo.  

> > I don't think so; at least, not if makeinfo does what its manual
> > says.  @itemx is defined to be identical to @item, except for not
> > inserting a blank line.  (See page "itemx" in the manual).

> That's not what I meant.  I meant that you in effect have here @item's
> without the text after them.  A @table is not supposed to be like that,
> so who knows what will the output be?  In particular, HTML and XML
> outputs may assume there always be some text, and if not, fail to
> properly close the markup.

Surely it's not unusual (in any markup language) to have a blank cell in
a table.  I've generated HTML, and it's fine.  I've generated XML, and it
looks fine too, as much as XML ever looks fine (though I don't know
offhand if I've got a suitable viewing program for it).

> > > This @verbatim is not enough, I think: the typeface used by this
> > > example will be different from every other example in the manual,
> > > right?  You need to force the same typeface as in @example, somehow.

> > > Btw, why didn't @example fit the bill?

> > Because @example inserts silly whitespace, of which there is already
> > too much.

> It indents to the current indent (e.g., if you are in a @table), and
> then a couple more columns.  I never found that annoying, let alone
> silly.

Yet you have pointed out lines in my patch which have been too long.
Have you never written @example code yourself, where the enforced
indentation has caused lines to become "too long"?

Using @example instead of @verbatim takes yet another 5 columns away.
Anyhow, I've put @example in now (as requested by Miles and yourself),
and split some more lines up.  There are, however, one or two lines which
go over C74 which can't sensibly be split.

> > I've now joined that body of hackers who hold Texinfo to be
> > unsuitable for writing manuals in, though it's still much better
> > than most of the competition.

> It's like democracy: the worst possible regime, except for all the
> others.

:-)

> Seriously, though: I have been writing Texinfo manuals and documents
> for at least 15 years now, and I find it very convenient and the
> results very nice.  Quite a few people asked me how I manage to produce
> such nice-looking documents in Word ;-)

So have I, for the most part.  But its undocumented restrictions, in
particular enforcing double line spacing of short @items etc., are not
nice-looking, IMAO.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).