On Sun, Jun 29, 2025 at 06:53:20PM +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 29, 2025 at 01:31:31AM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote:
> > > > In the default case, when using @documentinfo, the copying text would
> > > > be output
> > > > on the verso of the title page in PDF output. No separate command
> > > > would be
> > > > necessary.
> > >
> > > It is necessary if the user wants a specific formatting different than
> > > the default.
> >
> > Could we support input like the following?
> >
> > @documentinfo
> > @title Texinfo
> > @subtitle The GNU Documentation Format
> > @subtitle for Texinfo version @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
> > @author Robert J. Chassell
> > @author Richard M. Stallman
> > @end documentinfo
>
> In my view, the order in @documentinfo is relevant for some @commands,
> for instance @author or @subtitle, but the order across commands is not,
> so the above should be equivalent with
Yes, I agree.
> > The user uses @maketitle to produce the title page, and the second page
> > is created by the contents of the @copyrightpage block.
> >
> > We could also possibly provide a @makecopyrightpage command
> > for a default copyright page.
>
> To be consistent, a @makecopyrightpage command could also be needed if
> there is a @copyrightpage block, to have the @copyrightpage block
> outpput, like @maketitle or @insertcopying (in some cases).
It depends if @copyrightpage produces the output itself (see below).
> > We need some kind of explicit command to output the title page and/or the
> > title verso page for TeX output (and possibly LaTeX output with texi2any).
> > I don't think it's advisable to try and make it automatic. Sometimes users
> > might not want a title page, or might not quite follow the strucutre of the
> > document that we expect them to. @maketitle and @copyrightpage would be
> > ignored in nearly all output formats with texi2any but users would have to
> > give them anyway if they wanted such pages for printed output.
>
> That is not really what I had in mind, even if it is already an
> improvement over the current situation.
>
> My idea was that the commands triggering output (@maketitle,
> @makecopyrightpage...) would always be rendered unless in output
> specific conditionals. The idea what that we would try to make them
> unneeded, that using information provided in environments that are not
> directly output (@copyrightpage, @documentinfo) would be enough and used
> by the processors based on the output format to automatically do the
> title page, if needed by the format.
How could we distinguish among output with @titlepage, output with
@shorttittlepage, output with both, and output with neither?
There are also @contents and @shortcontents, do you want to insert
them automatically as well? If so, how would we tell whether to output
the short contents or not?
It seems to me that document authors make a choice as to which
of these elements they want to include at the beginning of their
output, and in which order, and different authors make different
choices. It may not be possible to automatically do the right
thing in all contexts.
If the user gives "@documentinfo", it is probably safe to make
the title page at least, if not the short title page.
We'd have to trigger the title page output in texinfo.tex by some
early command, such as "@contents" or "@node Top".
