> Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2021 11:44:34 -0800 > From: Per Bothner <p...@bothner.com> > > My proposed replacement for Emacs info mode would look for html files > and render them using eww mode. Eww doesn't handle JavaScript, so it > couldn't use info.js, but the logic of info mode could be enhanced > to work with html files instead of (or rather in addition to) info files. > (Conceptually, it's a matter of changing eww's keybindings > to work like info mode.)
Before this happens, the Texinfo project should define rules and directory hierarchy for installing HTML manuals on a typical system, in a way that will support everything that Info supports. For starters, cross-manual links should work regardless of whether the manuals were generated as a single monolith file or split into chapters or nodes. We should also have a global index.html (or maybe we should call it dir.html) file with a menu for all the installed manuals, and install-info should be enhanced (or a new program written) to produce/update such a global index. Standard Makefile rules should also be extended to support installation of HTML formatted manuals, and perhaps also produce them by default. AFAIK we never approached these issues seriously, but if we want to lead and support the move towards using HTML formatted docs more, we should start development and discussions in this direction ASAP. > Note that using eww-mode running in a terminal displays texi2any-generated > html work pretty decently, so that could potentially replace the > standalone info program, once we have an html-supporting info mode. Two issues with this: . the stand-alone Info reader is a much leaner program than Emacs . the eww mode is _slow_, especially on GUI displays, because it performs layout calculations in Lisp. eww mode was never designed to handle large bodies of text. In general, Emacs has a ways to go before it will be able to be a decent replacement for Info for use of the HTML formatted docs, because the features mentioned above don't yet exist in Emacs, and we just started discussing them. There are also quite a few features in the Emacs Info mode that are cross-manual and some of them don't exist in the stand-alone reader -- those will need to be rewritten to work with HTML manuals instead. I guess my main point is that the move to HTML docs in the GNU project is not a simple decision, and will need at least a close cooperation of the Emacs and Texinfo projects to create a workable system. We shouldn't assume that everything is already ready for that, just because we already have HTML browsers. A lot of non-trivial issues need to be figured out and solved before we could have a solid workable system.