Location of contents for HTML

[Gavin Smith]

On Sun, Nov 01, 2020 at 09:36:53PM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 01, 2020 at 07:01:05PM +0000, Gavin Smith wrote:
> > > 
> > > Ok, but then this means that there should be a sectiontoc if there is no
> > > @shortcontents nor @contents.
> > 
> > Yes, I agree. 
> 
> I will commit a fix.
> 
> >  Also, I wonder if the contents and shortcontents should
> > be output after the Top node in index.html, rather than before.
> 
> In the default case, unless I am missing something, the contents 
> and shortcontents are output where they appear in the document, as
> INLINE_CONTENTS is set to 1.  One possibility would be to change the
> location of those @-commands in the manual Texinfo code.  It would clash
> with TeX, as TeX does not output the table of content if after the first
> sectioning command.

I see.  I did not know about INLINE_CONTENTS.

I don't like the idea of asking authors to move where the commands
are in the document to get commands in a sensible place.  I think
the default should be to output @shortcontents and/or @contents at
the end of the Top node.

I understand that if INLINE_CONTENTS is 0, then the contents are
output in a separate file (MANUAL_toc.html) or at the end of the
file for non-split output.  This is used with '-c TEXI2HTML=1'.
INLINE_CONTENTS=1 would be useful if a file didn't have nodes.

So I suggest having another variable, like
'MOVE_CONTENTS_AFTER_TOP_NODE' or 'OUTPUT_CONTENTS_IN_TOP_NODE',
which would be set to 1 by default.

As far as I understand it, there would not usually be anything else,
other than @contents, output as part of the conversion of the tree
before the Top node starts.  (There can be a title which is treated
specially.)