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Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 15:16:14 -0700
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From: John Turner <turner@xdiv.lanl.gov>
To: hniksic@srce.hr
Cc: xemacs-beta@xemacs.org
Subject: Re: XEmacs FAQ
In-Reply-To: <kign2u946t0.fsf@jagor.srce.hr>
References: <199701162120.QAA01168@spacely.icd.teradyne.com>
	<kign2u946t0.fsf@jagor.srce.hr>
Reply-To: turner@lanl.gov

Hrvoje Niksic writes:

 > Thanks for the corrections, vin.  Speaking of maintenance, I think we
 > need to decide in which format we should keep the FAQ.  The decision
 > is obviously a choice between HTML and Texinfo.
 > 
 > HTML pros:
 > - Looks nicer;
 > - Easy to put on the web, with lots of links.
 > 
 > Texinfo pros:
 > - In compliance with the rest of XEmacs and GNU documentation;
 > - Can be converted to HTML automatically (the reverse is not so easy);
 > - Better suited for documentation (we can add indices and stuff);
 > - Easier to print as a manual.
 > 
 > What we definitely *not* want is to have two different documents, with
 > the need for this kind of synching.  Since texi2html conversion is
 > trivial (albeit maybe not as fancy as the original HTML would be), I
 > vote for Texinfo.

Another disadvantage to the straight HTML route is the loss of the
info version.

*If* it is decided that it's not necessary to have the info version,
then there's yet another option.  LaTeX and LaTeX2HTML.  I went
through a decision process about this recently, and that's what I
settled on for my stuff.  I even went so far as to seriously consider
non-free options like FrameMaker.

I wanted:

o the ability to do extensive math as well as include graphics

o the ability to make nice paper versions, with TOC and index.

The first req. ruled out Texinfo and the 2nd ruled out raw HTML.
Since I had already done a dissertation and papers in LaTeX, I tried
out LaTeX2HTML and found it to be the best of both worlds.  It's not
exactly the panacea I thought it would be (i.e. it's a bit harder than
I expected to make nice paper *and* HTML), but I find it to be the
best thing for me.

Whether it would be best for XEmacs is another question.  Just thought
I'd throw this into the pot.

The LaTeX2HTML home page is:

http://cbl.leeds.ac.uk/nikos/tex2html/doc/latex2html/latex2html.html

and there are some sample converted docs there.  Check out in
particular:

http://www.mcs.anl.gov/dbpp/

and I could provide URLs for some of my stuff as well.

--
John A. Turner         |"Music is the cup which holds the wine of silence;
Los Alamos Natl. Lab.  |  sound is that cup, but empty;
e-mail: turner@lanl.gov|    noise is that cup, but broken."
                       |                        - Robert Fripp

