freebsd-dev/contrib/texinfo/TODO
2002-07-22 16:52:57 +00:00

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Copyright (C) 1992, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 2000, 01, 02
Free Software Foundation.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
If you are interested in working on any of these, email bug-texinfo@gnu.org.
* Makeinfo:
- Try directory of main source file.
- Support @`{@dotless{i}} et al. in HTML.
- A detexinfo program, like detex or delatex. This command would
strip all the texinfo commands out, and would be used as a filter on
the way to a speller. An option would be to NOT strip comments out.
makeinfo --no-headers comes close.
- If node name contains an @ command, complain explicitly.
- Call Ghostscript to get ASCII/jpg output for the @image command.
- Better HTML output: allow settable background color, table colors
and spacing, <head> meta tags, back link from footnote marker, etc.
- Rewrite completely to simplify generation of different formats.
* TeX:
- Use @ as the escape character, and Texinfo syntax generally, in the
table of contents, aux, and index files. Eliminate all the crazy
multiple redefinitions of every Texinfo command in different contexts.
- Handle @hsep and @vsep in @multitables.
- Introduce new command to change \bindingoffset.
- Reasonable way to change fonts from the default (some work has been
done), to allow for PostScript fonts, for example.
- How about using latex2html to produce HTML?
- Support 8-bit input characters, perhaps via the ec fonts.
- Repeat table headings if a @multitable is multiple pages long.
- Table of contents gets misaligned if there are 10 or more [sub]sections.
* General:
- Rationalize and improve the dir categories in existing manuals.
- @xindexterm [def] primary [,secondary [,tertiary]] or some such?
- Support compressed image files.
- Handle reference card creation, perhaps by only paying attention to
sectioning and @def... commands.
- Allow @end (and other?) commands to be indented in the source.
- Get Info declared as a MIME Content-Type.
* Language:
- @figure:
@figure [xref-label]
@figureinclude <filename>, [<height>], [<width>]
@figurehsize <dimen>
@figurevsize <dimen>
@caption ... @end caption
<arbitrary Texinfo commands>
@end figure
- multicolumn * width to take up `the rest'.
- another table command to take N succeeding items and split them
into M columns (see eplain).
- support bibliographies with BibTeX (see web2c/doc for kludge prototype).
- @flushboth to combine @flushleft and @flushright, for RFC's.
- @part sectioning command.
- Allow subitems and `see' and `see also' in indices.
- @exercise/@answer command for, e.g., gawk.
- Allow @hsep/@vsep at @item, instead of just in template.
- Support automatic line numbering of examples.
- Better macro syntax.
- Allow : in node names for info files, for names like
`class::method'. Likewise index entries. A quoting mechanism such
as surrounding node names with SPACE BACKSPACE is probably the best
solution, although this is an incompatible change to Info format, sigh.
- Change bars. This is difficult or impossible in TeX,
unfortunately. To do it right requires device driver support.
wdiff or ediff may be all we can do.
* Doc:
- Include a complete functional summary, as in a reference card, in
the manual.
- Improve the manuals, especially for makeinfo, standalone info, etc.
- new section on doing dedication pages. See gawk.texi
for an example of doing it in both the tex and info versions.
* Info:
- Regular expression search.
- Full-text search across all info files installed on the system.
- Support character sets other than ISO Latin 1.
- Perhaps comply with LANGUAGE setting on a per-node basis, to allow
incremental translation of Texinfo files.
- Search all nodes of dir file at startup, then can have
INFO-DIR-SEPARATE-GROUPS and other such.
- Better dir file merging.
- Steal interface ideas from Lynx: number links, use color, etc.
Perhaps code from the pinfo viewer can be reused:
http://zeus.polsl.gliwice.pl/~pborys/.
- More sample .infokey files, so people can choose without writing their own.
- q within help should quit help like C-x 0.
- Incorporate an X-based viewer, perhaps tkinfo
http://www.math.ucsb.edu/~boldt/tkinfo/
or saxinfo.
* PDF:
- make each letter of the index (A, B, ...) a section in the TOC.
From Carsten Dominik <dominik@astro.uva.nl>.
* install-info:
- be able to copy the info file to compile-time $(infodir), to
simplify by-hand installation.
Ideas that will not be implemented:
- Process Texinfo files directly instead of converting to Info:
ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/ucb/people/phelps/tcltk/tkman.tar.Z, which
uses Tcl/Tk 8.0 from ftp.smli.com in the /pub/tcl directory.
From: phelps@ecstasy.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Phelps)
[This has the disadvantage of needing to be updated when the
Texinfo language changes, so don't.]
- Split HTML output by chapter.
[Then cross-references in HTML cannot be generated consistently.]