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Re: Agenda for next Texinfo release


From: Patrice Dumas
Subject: Re: Agenda for next Texinfo release
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 12:15:45 +0100

On Tue, Jan 05, 2021 at 10:19:41PM +0000, Gavin Smith wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 04, 2021 at 10:46:20PM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > Is the design of that decided?  I would still be in favor of
> > * having arguments separated by comma ,
> 
> Yes, if there is more than one argument then it would make sense to
> separate the arguments by commas rather than by spaces.  This still
> needs to be implemented.

Ok.

> > * giving a meaning to the first argument (the language) and the 
> >   second (small or not for compatibilities with @smallexample and 
> >   others).
> 
> Since texi2any is not doing anything with the arguments other than
> using them as HTML class names, there's nothing to enforce uses of
> arguments.  The only real question seems to be how the feature is
> documented and how strongly recommended it is to stick to particular
> uses for each argument.

I fully agree, this is not that much a need for now, but this is an
opportunity that we should not let pass.  If an argument is the
language, there would be an immediate use for that semantic, which would
be syntax highlighting in @example and similar blocks.  But more
generally, I think that we should leave us the possibility to give
semantics (meaning) to the arguments later, and therefore warn users
that need to be prepared to change their arguments order if they give
arguments.


A proposal:


For now the argument of @example have no specific meaning, besides being
used in HTML output for classes attributes.  However, we reserve the
possibility to give meaning to the arguments in later evolutions of the
Texinfo language.  This could force a change in arguments order.  Right
now, the candidates could be the language of the @example block, and a
hint about the desired size, to replace the obsolete @smallexample and
similar @-commands, but nothing is really fixed, and this could change
in future releases.


-- 
Pat



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