Re: automatic generation of @menu entries

[Patrice Dumas]

On Sun, Sep 12, 2021 at 03:09:30PM -0400, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> 
> based on the manual description, it sounds like the tree structure is
> accessible already since that's how the @contents are generated, and
> it's able to output that just fine.  so i (naively) assume that adding
> an automatic menu would be comparable.

As I said in another mail, it is already the case, in Info output a menu
is automatically added if there is none.  Also now, in the default case,
in HTML output the sectioning commands are used for directions, not
menus (default is 'sectiontoc' for FORMAT_MENU).

> > It would also mean the produced menu items will lack the short
> > descriptions, which are produced by a human typing them in Texinfo.
> 
> right, that's why i suggested a new @menudesc to retain that part 

I do not think that it is very relevant to add a separate @-command for
that.  My understanding of the @menu use-case is to allow to have
a control on the formatting of the menu for the Info format, to have
a menu that looks good in plain text, with control on spacing in
particular.  Having a separate @menudesc command would be more in line
with the semantic nature of the Texinfo language, but would see little
use, as, my feeling is that descriptions are not really useful if not
part of a menu.

> (if
> the existing @unnumberedsec and such are insufficient).

Node names are used in menus, not sectioning commands names.  There is
a TREE_TRANSFORMATIONS, insert_nodes_for_sectioning_commands, that uses
sectioning commands to setup nodes automatically using sectioning
commands names, but it is not the default setting.  With
@xrefautomaticsectiontitle and other customization variables
it is possible to use more section names, but in general it is not the
default.

-- 
Pat