| 1 | $Id: TODO,v 1.26 2004/11/22 23:57:32 karl Exp $
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| 2 | This is the todo list for GNU Texinfo.
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| 3 | If you are interested in working on any of these, email bug-texinfo@gnu.org.
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| 4 |
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| 5 | Copyright (C) 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003,
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| 6 | 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation.
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| 7 |
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| 8 | Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
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| 9 | are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
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| 10 | notice and this notice are preserved.
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| 11 |
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| 12 | * General:
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| 13 | - @euro{}.
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| 14 | - Support installation of manuals in different languages, along these lines:
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| 15 | . support a LINGUAS file or variable saying which subdirs LL in the
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| 16 | source to descend into (under doc/).
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| 17 | . within each subdir LL, install the info files into $infodir/LL,
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| 18 | and run install-info on $infodir/LL/dir.
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| 19 | . info (both emacs and standalone) should read $infodir/$LANG/dir
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| 20 | as the first dir file, and likewise read info files first from
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| 21 | $infodir/$LANG, before falling back to $infodir.
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| 22 | . consider ways to avoid installing images in both places.
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| 23 | In fact, images probably need to be installed in a subdir
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| 24 | $infodir/MANUAL/ in the first place, to avoid conflicts of having
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| 25 | the same image name in different manuals.
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| 26 | For a test case, see texinfo cvs, with its one translated manual
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| 27 | (info-fr.texi).
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| 28 | From Wojciech Polak.
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| 29 | - Monitor and improve the dir categories in existing manuals,
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| 30 | following the Free Software Directory categories. Much mail to
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| 31 | developers has already been sent, what's needed now is to check new
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| 32 | releases and make sure they are using the right categories.
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| 33 | See the util/dir-example in the Texinfo distribution for our current
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| 34 | recommended categories.
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| 35 | For background, see the thread (which discusses a lot of other
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| 36 | issues too) at
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| 37 | http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/emacs-devel/2002-10/msg00011.html,
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| 38 | especially
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| 39 | http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2002-10/msg00090.html
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| 40 | http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2002-10/msg00137.html
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| 41 | - Get Info declared as a MIME Content-Type.
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| 42 | - Likewise the `info:' URI scheme; a library consortium has proposed a
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| 43 | completely different purpose for the URI scheme, but I don't know
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| 44 | how to send comments, despite it being a "request for comments". Sigh.
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| 45 | There is mail about this in the bug-texinfo archives:
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| 46 | http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2003-09/msg00086.html
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| 47 | - Support compressed image files.
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| 48 | - Support reference card creation, perhaps by only paying attention to
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| 49 | sectioning and @def... commands.
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| 50 | - Allow @end (and other?) commands to be indented in the source.
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| 51 | - Test for memory leaks, e.g., with valgrind:
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| 52 | http://developer.kde.org/~sewardj/
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| 53 | - Extend and improve the tests.
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| 54 |
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| 55 | * Language:
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| 56 | - @else for the @if... conditionals.
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| 57 | - @xindexterm [def] primary [,secondary [,tertiary]] or some such?
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| 58 | - Allow subitems and `see' and `see also' in indices.
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| 59 | - multicolumn * width to take up `the rest'.
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| 60 | - another table command to take N succeeding items and split them
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| 61 | into M columns (see eplain).
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| 62 | - support bibliographies with BibTeX (see web2c/doc for kludge prototype).
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| 63 | - @flushboth to combine @flushleft and @flushright, for RFC's.
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| 64 | - @part sectioning command.
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| 65 | - @exercise/@answer command for, e.g., gawk.
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| 66 | - Allow @hsep/@vsep at @item, instead of just in template.
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| 67 | - Support automatic line numbering of examples.
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| 68 | - Better macro syntax.
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| 69 | - Better def... command syntax.
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| 70 | - Allow : in node names for info files, for names like
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| 71 | `class::method'. Likewise index entries. A quoting mechanism such
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| 72 | as surrounding node names with SPACE BACKSPACE is probably the best
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| 73 | solution, although this is an incompatible change to Info format, sigh.
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| 74 | - Glossary/general definition support (dumas msg 28 Nov 2003 17:09:57 +0100).
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| 75 | - Add support for other Latin 9 (and Latin 2 and Latin 1) characters.
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| 76 |
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| 77 | * Makeinfo:
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| 78 | - Translation of "Appendix" etc. should depend on @doclang not $LANG.
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| 79 | - Try directory of main source file.
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| 80 | - Make makeinfo -E just do macro expansion, avoiding all error checks.
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| 81 | That way, texi2dvi could run makeinfo --iftex -E.
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| 82 | - A detexinfo program, like detex or delatex. This command would
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| 83 | strip all the texinfo commands out, and would be used as a filter on
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| 84 | the way to a speller. An option would be to NOT strip comments out.
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| 85 | makeinfo --no-headers comes close.
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| 86 | - If node name contains an @ command, complain explicitly.
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| 87 | - Use @documentlanguage instead of LANG for many translations.
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| 88 | - HTML: split output by chapter to improve context, per Akim.
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| 89 | Generate dummy files for all nodes for the sake of cross-references.
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| 90 | - HTML: support thumbnails.
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| 91 | - HTML: make images of math, maybe.
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| 92 | - HTML: allow settable background color, table colors and spacing,
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| 93 | <head> meta tags, etc. A la http://texi2html.cvshome.org. In fact:
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| 94 | - HTML: have a library of different CSS styles.
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| 95 | http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2004-01/msg00025.html
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| 96 | - XML: cannot be loaded directly in a browser; why not?
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| 97 | - Docbook: € and other entities do not work; does anything work?
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| 98 | - Rewrite completely to simplify generation of different formats.
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| 99 |
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| 100 | * TeX:
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| 101 | - Use @ as the escape character, and Texinfo syntax generally, in the
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| 102 | table of contents and index files. Eliminate all the crazy
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| 103 | multiple redefinitions of every Texinfo command in different contexts.
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| 104 | - Support input in any encoding and language, via ec or Latin Modern fonts.
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| 105 | - Reasonable way to change fonts from the default (some work has been
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| 106 | done), to allow for PostScript fonts, for example.
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| 107 | - @multitable: handle @hsep and @vsep.
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| 108 | - @multitable: repeat table headings if multiple pages long.
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| 109 | - @multitable: support a heading line concept (<thead> in HTML).
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| 110 | - Introduce new command to change \bindingoffset.
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| 111 | - How about using latex2html to produce HTML?
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| 112 | - Table of contents gets misaligned if there are 10 or more [sub]sections.
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| 113 | - Use url.sty (or something) to allow linebreak of url's.
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| 114 | - Include hyperlink \special's in the DVI output for xdvi, etc.
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| 115 | - PDF: make each letter of the index (A, B, ...) a section in the TOC.
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| 116 | From Carsten Dominik <dominik@astro.uva.nl>.
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| 117 |
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| 118 | * Doc:
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| 119 | - Include a complete functional summary, as in a reference card, in
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| 120 | the manual.
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| 121 | - Improve the manuals, especially for makeinfo, standalone info, etc.
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| 122 | - new section on doing dedication pages. See gawk.texi
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| 123 | for an example of doing it in both the tex and info versions.
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| 124 |
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| 125 | * Info:
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| 126 | - Regular expression search.
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| 127 | - Full-text search across all info files installed on the system.
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| 128 | - Support character sets other than ISO Latin 1.
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| 129 | - Perhaps comply with LANGUAGE setting on a per-node basis, to allow
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| 130 | incremental translation of Texinfo files.
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| 131 | - Search all nodes of dir file at startup, then can have
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| 132 | INFO-DIR-SEPARATE-GROUPS and other such.
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| 133 | - Better dir file merging.
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| 134 | - Global dir file (as in /etc/conf/dir) and texinfo config file
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| 135 | specifying which info directories to search. From Dale Mellor.
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| 136 | http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/private/gnu-prog-discuss/2003q4/000439.html
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| 137 | - Steal interface ideas from Lynx: number links, use color, etc.
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| 138 | Perhaps code from the pinfo viewer can be reused:
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| 139 | http://zeus.polsl.gliwice.pl/~pborys/.
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| 140 | - More sample .infokey files, so people can choose without writing their own.
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| 141 | - q within help should quit help like C-x 0.
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| 142 | - Incorporate an X-based viewer, perhaps saxinfo or tkinfo
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| 143 | http://www.math.ucsb.edu/~boldt/tkinfo/
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| 144 | - Make "info foo bar" search for bar in foo's index(es) if no menu match.
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| 145 | - Handle M-n, C-u m, and C-u g like Emacs Info (opening new windows).
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| 146 | - Write technical definition of Info format.
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| 147 |
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| 148 | * install-info:
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| 149 | - be able to copy the info file to compile-time $infodir, to
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| 150 | simplify by-hand installation.
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| 151 | - also support installing HTML files, etc., along with subsidiary
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| 152 | @image (or other) files. In subdirs. Or something.
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| 153 | - support info dir entries for other than the current info file name;
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| 154 | see comments in menu_item_equal.
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| 155 | - merge features with Debian install-info, so we can have one program.
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| 156 |
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| 157 | * texindex:
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| 158 | - read source file (specified by new option) for @documentlanguage
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| 159 | and/or @documentencoding, and change the sorting appropriately.
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| 160 | From: Wojciech Polak, 26 Apr 2003 11:30:59 +0200.
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| 161 |
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| 162 | * Distribution:
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| 163 | - generate txi-??.tex from .po's to make translators' jobs easier.
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| 164 | From Akim and Karl E.
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| 165 |
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| 166 | Ideas that will not be implemented:
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| 167 | - Process Texinfo files directly instead of converting to Info:
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| 168 | ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/ucb/people/phelps/tcltk/tkman.tar.Z, which
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| 169 | uses Tcl/Tk 8.0 from ftp.smli.com in the /pub/tcl directory.
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| 170 | From: phelps@ecstasy.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Phelps)
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| 171 | [This has the disadvantage of needing to be updated when the
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| 172 | Texinfo language changes, so don't.]
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| 173 |
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| 174 | - Call Ghostscript to get ASCII/jpg output for the @image command.
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| 175 | [makeinfo should not try to be make, or assume it knows how the user
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| 176 | wants to generate images. Too many different methods are possible.]
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| 177 |
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| 178 | - Change bars. This is difficult or impossible in TeX,
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| 179 | unfortunately. To do it right requires device driver support.
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| 180 | wdiff or ediff may be all we can do. Merely specifying what should be
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| 181 | changed is not obvious.
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