On Fri, 2002-03-08 at 20:51, Calvin Arndt wrote: > The purpose of the the doc build system (as I see it today) would be to > build the HTML help system from native AbiWord doc's. This puts those > documents in more of a SOURCE code role, than just a documentary role.
Yes, this is what we're after. > > To build the html documentation I need to be able to reliably retrieve > three pieces of information from the "source abi docs. > > 1.) Link information (which docs links to which) > 2.) Link Title information > 3.) Authoring Information > > Currently I have a system working which ALMOST reliably gets #1. Almost > is due to inconsistencies in the source abi docs... > > Seems that abi doesn't always create links in the same way. this can be > viewed comparing the toplevel index.abw to the index.abw in the > problems dir and also comparing those 2 files with the link in > credits.abw Actually, Abi always creates them with #. In credits.abw, I forgot to delete the # in a text editor. > > I currently have no method for retrieving either 2 or 3 but both should > be easily retrievable... They're both in the .info files, now, and thus trivially retrievable (I hope). The advantage of .info files is that it's easier to see the information -- you don't have to call up the bookmark list. > > Some things thing that could automatically be created on the fly: > > Index pages (even the top!) The index.html pages aren't indices. They're the default pages, so they need to be written properly. Actual indexes/site maps, OTOH, would be great and should be autogenerated. > hmtl footer's for each dir > html headers for each dir > Yep, I think those could be done automatically. > I think that by combining two abi functions we could create a pretty > nice (automatically generated) html help system where the documenters > would only need to be concerned with their source documents not the > html stuff... > > If we add 2 bookmarks in the source docs: > > #author > #title > > I can use the text of these bookmarks to generate the html fields: > > <title> > Copyright statement > > if we added: > > #description > > this text could be use to build the text of the index pages... > The .info files can do this bit, right? I think the separate files are easier than bookmarks, if only because the bookmark dialog window is quite small. > Doing all of this would allow a documentor to... > > add a category by just adding a newcategory.abw to the toplevel dir > ie. in en-US > > If required he could add a new dir under en-US for multilevel stuff > like > whats currently there... > At the moment, just adding the directory and a link in the top index.abw has this effect. > To conclude: > The only real issues here are that we agree on a format for the > bookmarks and that abi actually create the link without the # symbol > so I can tell a link from a bookmark > > currently if you > Insert>hyperlink>newlink.html[enter] > Abi adds the link while giving you the error (DOC DOESN'T EXIST) > but the link created is > #newlink.html > instead of: > newlink.html > (which may just mean I don't know how to do it right) > The point is links don't contain # bookmarks do... > The way to do this is to open your .abw file in a text editor and delete the # by hand. ;-) David -- David Chart
