POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.beta-test : [doc] some documentation bugs in RC1 for Linux Server Time
29 Jul 2024 16:28:12 EDT (-0400)
  [doc] some documentation bugs in RC1 for Linux (Message 1 to 5 of 5)  
From: Raphael Quinet
Subject: [doc] some documentation bugs in RC1 for Linux
Date: 22 Apr 2002 16:31:02
Message: <3CC472AB.EA9561B5@gamers.org>
Since I cannot use POV-Ray anymore (RC1 has expired since yesterday
and there is still no RC2 available as I am writing this), I spent
some time on the documeentation and I noticed some bugs in the HTML
files delivered with RC1 for Linux:
* All HTML files start with a comment that contains a line of
  hyphens.  Using pairs of hypens in a comment is forbidden by the
  HTML standard (this restriction was inherited from SGML) and this
  can cause some problems in some validating browers.
  Solution: insert spaces between the hyphens (except for the first
  and last pair) or use "=" or "_" instead.  This should probably
  be changed in the makedocs.pl script, which is unfortunately not
  included in the distribution.
* It would also be a good idea to start all files with a DOCTYPE tag
  because any HTML file without DOCTYPE is supposed to be HTML 3.2,
  but these files are using some tags from HTML 4.01 and should
  therefore start with this line (before anything else): 
  <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
* All HTML files refer to the stylesheet povray35.css, which is not
  included in the distribution.  Same for a bit of JavaScript that
  is supposed to be in povray35.js, although I feel better without
  it.
* All HTML files contain a comment saying that the stylesheet can
  be overriden by personal settings by "placing a 'povray35.css' file
  in the root directory of the disk volume that holds this help file"
  This is absurd on a UNIX-like system such as Linux, which mounts
  all disk volumes in a single directory hierarchy.  It would be
  better to remove this comment and the corresponding <link...> tag,
  or to use a script that replaces "file:///povray35.css" by a more
  appropriate path (based on $prefix) at installation time.
* The file intro.html has a <table> tag that is never closed.  As a
  result, Netscape 4.x can only display a blank page without any
  contents.  Inserting </table> at the end of the page solves the
  problem.
* Also in the file intro.html, there is a reference to the image
  "output/images/logotext.jpg", which does not exist.
* Still in intro.html, the <ul> tag on line 38 should be replaced by
  <blockquote>.  Also, the <font> tag should be inside the block,
  not outside of it.
* The file povdoc_017.html has a broken <a> tag on line 45: there is
  an extra </a> inside the first part of the tag.
* The text in povdoc_172.html (line 183 in section 6.2.6.3) contains
  an extra word "Switch" that should probably not be there.  The
  text reads: "In the #range variety, Low_Value Switch and High_Value
  are floats..."

There is also a general problem with the installation paths:
according to the GNU Coding Standards and the Linux Filesystem
Hierarchy Standards, most of the POV-Ray files should be installed
in $prefix/share/, not in $prefix/lib/ as this is currently done.  If
necessary, I can provide some help there: I am quite familiar with
automake, autoconf and other tools due to my experience with the GIMP
and other software packages.

I am eagerly waiting for RC2.  Since the Linux version (and maybe the
Mac version) appears to be released one day later than the Windows
version (which I cannot use), it would be nice to extend the
expiration date of the Linux betas by one day.  That would allow the
beta-testers to keep on using and testing POV-Ray without being stuck
with an expired version.


-- 
http://www.gamers.org/~quinet/


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From: Thorsten Froehlich
Subject: Re: [doc] some documentation bugs in RC1 for Linux
Date: 22 Apr 2002 17:18:31
Message: <3cc47e27@news.povray.org>
In article <3CC472AB.EA9561B5@gamers.org> , Raphael Quinet <qui### [at] gamersorg>
wrote:

> This should probably
>   be changed in the makedocs.pl script, which is unfortunately not
>   included in the distribution.

It would not help you to have this script as you don't have access to the
source of the documentation either...

> * The file povdoc_017.html has a broken <a> tag on line 45: there is
>   an extra </a> inside the first part of the tag.

Can you provide about five to ten lines of HTML around it?  It isn't easy to
find on other platforms with the information you provided.


    Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org


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From: Raphael Quinet
Subject: Re: [doc] some documentation bugs in RC1 for Linux
Date: 23 Apr 2002 01:58:11
Message: <3CC4F794.9F2FCEEF@gamers.org>
Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> In article <3CC472AB.EA9561B5@gamers.org> , Raphael Quinet <qui### [at] gamersorg>
> wrote:
> > This should probably
> >   be changed in the makedocs.pl script, which is unfortunately not
> >   included in the distribution.
> 
> It would not help you to have this script as you don't have access to the
> source of the documentation either...

Well, that's another bug that should be fixed, then...  ;-)

> > * The file povdoc_017.html has a broken <a> tag on line 45: there is
> >   an extra </a> inside the first part of the tag.
> 
> Can you provide about five to ten lines of HTML around it?  It isn't easy to
> find on other platforms with the information you provided.

This is in section 1.7.5.  Here is the relevant paragraph.  Note the
broken tag around "Technical Assistance Group":

----------
Bug reports may be lodged about POV-Ray by posting them in the appropriate group on
our news 
server, <a href="http://www.povray.org/groups.html" target="new">news.povray.org</a>.
See 
http://www.povray.org/groups.html for information about the server, and particularly
for 
information as to which group to use. The newsgroups are monitored by a dedicated
group of 
folks known as the POV-Ray <a href="http://tag.povray.org" target="new"</a>Technical
Assistance
Group</a>, or 'TAG' for short. The TAG will take note of any properly-lodged bug
reports and
pass them on to the developers. They, and other users, will often lend new users a
hand in
getting up to speed.
----------

By the way, it would be nicer if the HTML text had been written with
a maximum width of less than 80 columns, in order to avoid some line
wrapping issues.  But this is only a minor detail.


-- 
http://www.gamers.org/~quinet/


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From: Thorsten Froehlich
Subject: Re: [doc] some documentation bugs in RC1 for Linux
Date: 23 Apr 2002 03:31:22
Message: <3cc50dca@news.povray.org>
In article <3CC4F794.9F2FCEEF@gamers.org> , Raphael Quinet <qui### [at] gamersorg>
wrote:

> This is in section 1.7.5.  Here is the relevant paragraph.  Note the
> broken tag around "Technical Assistance Group":

Ah, no wonder I cannot find it - section 1.7.5 is the platform specific
documentation...

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org


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From: ingo
Subject: Re: [doc] some documentation bugs in RC1 for Linux
Date: 23 Apr 2002 08:05:05
Message: <Xns91F98FB8B5230seed7@povray.org>
in news:3CC472AB.EA9561B5@gamers.org Raphael Quinet wrote:

> * The text in povdoc_172.html (line 183 in section 6.2.6.3) contains
>   an extra word "Switch" [...]

Fixed,

Ingo


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