What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
Unix?

Available formats to choose from:

WordPerfect
MS Word 97
MS Word (simple, read by WordPad)
PostScript
PDF (only if I can generate it with free tools)
HTML (export from MS Word)
Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
free tools.

(Sorry, but I don't have any tools to generate HLP files for Windows.)

-Nathan

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Nathan Kopp wrote:

>
>What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows
>and Unix?
>
>Available formats to choose from:
>
>WordPerfect
>MS Word 97
Non of the above.

>MS Word (simple, read by WordPad)
Maybe.

>PostScript
>PDF (only if I can generate it with free tools)
None of the above for on screen display, maybe ok for printing.

>HTML (export from MS Word)
Ok for on screen, bad for printing.

>Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
>free tools.
RTF, most wordprocessors (unix?) know it, good for printing and easy
converted to html. 

Ingo
-- 
Photography: http://members.home.nl/ingoogni/
Pov-Ray    : http://members.home.nl/seed7/

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Nathan Kopp wrote:

.txt is fine by me. With .txt I can open it directly in the POV-Ray for
windows scene editor and switch between my working scene window and
the document window when I need clarification on something rather than
having to spawn a seperate application to see it.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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>What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
>Unix?


I'm pretty attached to HTML, preferably with CSS, layers, frames, and the
whole shabang... My second choice would be PDF.

Post a reply to this message

Barring .hlp from the picture only leaves me with
.html as a format of choice. If the docs were set up
as a web site (not on the net but on your own machine)
finding the data could be much easier than searching a whole
text file.

Nathan Kopp wrote:
> 
> What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> Unix?
> 
> Available formats to choose from:
> 
> WordPerfect
> MS Word 97
> MS Word (simple, read by WordPad)
> PostScript
> PDF (only if I can generate it with free tools)
> HTML (export from MS Word)
> Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
> free tools.
> 
> (Sorry, but I don't have any tools to generate HLP files for Windows.)
> 
> -Nathan

-- 
Mr. Art

"Often the appearance of reality is more important 
than the reality of the appearance."
Bill DeWitt 2000

Post a reply to this message

Nathan Kopp wrote:

> What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> Unix?
>
> Available formats to choose from:
>
> WordPerfect

Probably not supported enough.


> MS Word 97

Eww. Help. Please no.

> MS Word (simple, read by WordPad)

Also not too good.


> PostScript

Nice for printing, but probably not for a on-computer reference.


> PDF (only if I can generate it with free tools)

A bit better than PS, but maybe so-so. Much preferred over any MS Word format
though.


> HTML (export from MS Word)

No no no nonononononononononononooooooooooooooooooooo. Please no. Its output
is so horrible and broken that it's only due to the sloppy implementation of
HTML in MSIE that Word's output just accendentally happens to work. Please
something else.


> Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
> free tools.

I'd suggest exporting to RTF (as most word processors on most platforms
handle that and in a fairly good manner). Then you might have it run through
some tools to make nice HTML.

If you had anyway to get to XML, that would be great. From good XML it's
quite easy to get it converted to just about anything needed, and to build
needed indexies, etc.


> (Sorry, but I don't have any tools to generate HLP files for Windows.)
>
> -Nathan

Hmmm. If you sign up for the free MSDN membership, you might get free access
to their help compiler. It's worth looking into.


And, yes, I'd be more than willing to give some time, if it would mean saving
you from having to put out MS Word's HTML.  :-)

--
"My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box" - W.A.Y.

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>(Sorry, but I don't have any tools to generate HLP files for Windows.)


Almost forgot.

Check out: http://www.kos.org/software/hlpy.htm
And, for a more updated version:
http://www.xteq.com/products/hlpy/index.html

Post a reply to this message

Nathan Kopp wrote in message <388b6675@news.povray.org>...
>
>What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
>Unix?
>
>Available formats to choose from:
>


Text or html would be prefered here.

Gail
*******************************************************************
* gsh### [at] monotixcoza              * ERROR: COFFEE.COM not found  *
* http://www.rucus.ru.ac.za/~gail/ * Insert cup and press any key *
*******************************************************************
* Definition of an upgrade: Take the old bugs out, put new ones in*
*******************************************************************

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Nathan Kopp <Nat### [at] koppcom> wrote:
: WordPerfect
: MS Word 97
: MS Word (simple, read by WordPad)

  In unix?
  Well, I could read them using StarOffice, but it would be a pain to start
it every time I want to read a quick help.

: PostScript

  Nope. Too hard to navigate.

: PDF (only if I can generate it with free tools)

  Only if PFD supports links to other parts of the document.

: HTML (export from MS Word)

  Perhaps the best choice (if it has proper links). But I think that the
Word's HTML export is not the best possible.

  Some people suggest the RTF format.
  How do I open such a file in unix? Does it support links?

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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I suggest you don't use platform dependant formats, such as Word.
Postscript is good for printing, but the files are rather large to d/l. 
My favorite would be html. 

sig.

Nathan Kopp wrote:
> 
> What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> Unix?
> 
> Available formats to choose from:
> 
> WordPerfect
> MS Word 97
> MS Word (simple, read by WordPad)
> PostScript
> PDF (only if I can generate it with free tools)
> HTML (export from MS Word)
> Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
> free tools.
> 
> (Sorry, but I don't have any tools to generate HLP files for Windows.)
> 
> -Nathan

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 23 Jan 2000 15:35:55 -0500, "Nathan Kopp" <Nat### [at] Koppcom>
wrote:

>What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
>Unix?


HTML would be good for me, except one person said that MS-Word's HTML
conversion tool doesn't work very well. I've seen similiar conversion
tools from other companies, and they didn't work very well either.

Is it too hard to write the docs in HTML to start with? This would
certainly solve cross-platform issues. I think there are even HTML
browsers for DOS users. HTML is probably the most portable option of
all.

I think it might also be nice to allow end-user modification of the
help file.  If the help file is in a modular HTML format, it would be
possible for the end-user to add some new pages, correct a typo on an
existing page, or make whatever personal notes they wanted. It would
become more of a personalized "workbook" in a sense. I can't do these
things to a PDF, PostScript, or Windows Help document. 

As for the Word Processing formats you listed, I personally can read
and edit any of those, but I don't think they are very portable across
different platforms.

As for Windows users of MegaPov, it might be nice to simply launch a
Windows Help file, but I can easily live without this if it will be
too much work to create.

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 23 Jan 2000 15:35:55 -0500, Nathan Kopp wrote:
>
>What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
>Unix?
>Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
>free tools.

DocBook!  DocBook!  (no free tools available yet, though, so you'll
have to write your own. :) )

-- 
These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html

Post a reply to this message

TonyB wrote:
> 
> >What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> >Unix?
> 
> I'm pretty attached to HTML, preferably with CSS, layers, frames, and the
> whole shabang... My second choice would be PDF.

Just to comment on that, layers aren't supported by many browsers, e.g.
mozilla does not support this netscape HTML-enhancement.

Just a note

Axel

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 23 Jan 2000 15:35:55 -0500 "Nathan Kopp" <Nat### [at] Koppcom>
wrote:

>What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
>Unix?

  HTML or .pdf.

  I like .pdf for the official POV-Ray because it preserves example
images, section numbers, and one can 'pagedown' through the document.
Having one large document makes it easy to perform a search for
keywords.

-- 
Alan - ako### [at] povrayorg - a k o n g <at> p o v r a y <dot> o r g
http://www.povray.org - Home of the Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer

Post a reply to this message

Ron Parker wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 23 Jan 2000 15:35:55 -0500, Nathan Kopp wrote:
> >
> >What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> >Unix?
> >Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
> >free tools.
> 
> DocBook!  DocBook!  (no free tools available yet, though, so you'll
> have to write your own. :) )
> 

Just wanted to support that one. Oh, when you want to write your tools,
look for:

http://www.sgmltools.org/  This is unix piece of software, and a bit
dead (and outdated). Get current docbook at http://www.docbook.org/ ,
they have all important links. They have stylesheets as well, so IE and
mozilla should be able to read .sgml directly. Be sure to look at
http://www.nwalsh.com/ , he's on of the XML gurus, member of W3
commities, IIRC. And http://www.jclark.com/ , he's author of expat, one
of the most commonly used XML parsers (expat), and jade, transforming
engnine. As I surf, jade is available on WIN32, so here your free tools
go. (sgmltools is just a package with nice scripts to call jade).

What a Ken'ish reply that is.

Axel

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Axel Hecht wrote:

> What a Ken'ish reply that is.

And a good one it was. I'm glad someone keeps track of programming
links because I just don't have the time or experience to keep up
with them and evaluate their worth.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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Well, yet another comment on formats, pdf uses the unisys patented
compression (like gif's), so having free tools that use the compression
features of pdf are probably illegal. And therefor dangerous.
Or you don't have compressions, that will result in file length equiv to
those of Postscript (without the messy bitmap files, ps sucks at those,
pdf supports jpg and png IIRC)

Axel

Post a reply to this message

Alan Kong wrote:
> 
>   I like .pdf for the official POV-Ray because it preserves example
> images, section numbers, and one can 'pagedown' through the document.
> Having one large document makes it easy to perform a search for
> keywords.

A few months ago I would have disagreed but now I can only support .pdf.
It's quite useful as an online doc. I like the official one very much
now.

Marc

-- 
Marc Schimmler

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 14:25:43 +0100, Axel Hecht wrote:
>Ron Parker wrote:
>> 
>> On Sun, 23 Jan 2000 15:35:55 -0500, Nathan Kopp wrote:
>> >
>> >What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
>> >Unix?
>> >Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
>> >free tools.
>> 
>> DocBook!  DocBook!  (no free tools available yet, though, so you'll
>> have to write your own. :) )
>> 
>As I surf, jade is available on WIN32, so here your free tools
>go. (sgmltools is just a package with nice scripts to call jade).

Just to clarify: I meant that there aren't any free Word-based tools 
available yet.  That shouldn't be a hindrance, though, as you can 
write DocBook fairly easily in your favorite text editor.

-- 
These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html

Post a reply to this message

Marc Schimmler wrote:

> A few months ago I would have disagreed but now I can only support .pdf.
> It's quite useful as an online doc. I like the official one very much
> now.

I don't mind .pdf all that much but the only free tool that I know of
to read them (Adobe Acrobat) really sucks big time in my opinion.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 05:51:13 -0800, Ken wrote:
>
>
>Marc Schimmler wrote:
>
>> A few months ago I would have disagreed but now I can only support .pdf.
>> It's quite useful as an online doc. I like the official one very much
>> now.
>
>I don't mind .pdf all that much but the only free tool that I know of
>to read them (Adobe Acrobat) really sucks big time in my opinion.

GhostScript can read PDF as well, but I think it's even harder to use, 
UI-wise.

-- 
These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html

Post a reply to this message

>Just to comment on that, layers aren't supported by many browsers, e.g.
>mozilla does not support this netscape HTML-enhancement.


Oh, I know that... I was just being selfish. <g>

Post a reply to this message

Dear  Mr.Nathan Kopp

I am a Japanese,and Official manual is very difficult to uderstand for me.
So in my case,
I take out mainly Syntax from manual and put them into header of source file.

And I check Token.c,Parser.c etc. files,
and I add comments(Of cource Japanese) each function,pattern and so on.
Now I make all images of all functions,pattern and so on,
then I can not make pattern of  "facets" inside pigments,
so I check source and add only use inside  "normal" message like this.

I hope plain text is better.
I attach half way of my manual of functions.
Of cource I put this in source file.

Y.Tanabe
Kobe,Japan


Nathan Kopp wrote:

> What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> Unix?
>
> Available formats to choose from:
>
> WordPerfect
> MS Word 97
> MS Word (simple, read by WordPad)
> PostScript
> PDF (only if I can generate it with free tools)
> HTML (export from MS Word)
> Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
> free tools.
>
> (Sorry, but I don't have any tools to generate HLP files for Windows.)
>
> -Nathan

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'manual.doc.txt' (18 KB)

Nathan Kopp <Nat### [at] Koppcom> wrote ...
>
> What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> Unix?
>

I guess I worded that poorly.  I was hoping for answers like:
  "I use unix, and I'd like _____."
or
  "I use Windows, and I'd like ______."

For example, the Windows people might like HLP (if I can figure out how to
use it) or Wordpad, but the unix people might prefer HTML or PS.

Of course, I'll have to figure out some good primary format that both myself
and the Smellenbergh brothers can work on and then export/import to the
other formats.

-Nathan

Post a reply to this message

"I use Windows, and I'd like HLP."

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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Glen Berry <7no### [at] ezwvcom> wrote...
> I think it might also be nice to allow end-user modification of the
> help file.  If the help file is in a modular HTML format, it would be
> possible for the end-user to add some new pages, correct a typo on an
> existing page, or make whatever personal notes they wanted. It would
> become more of a personalized "workbook" in a sense. I can't do these
> things to a PDF, PostScript, or Windows Help document.

The problem with multiple files is that they are more difficult to maintain
and distribute than a single file that contains the entire document.

> As for Windows users of MegaPov, it might be nice to simply launch a
> Windows Help file, but I can easily live without this if it will be
> too much work to create.

Like I said, if I can get free tools to export from a word processor to HLP,
I'll give it a try.  I'll try that tool that Tony recommended.

-Nathan

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 06:30:41 -0800, Ken wrote:
>  "I use Windows, and I'd like HLP."

I use Windows and Unix, and I'd like DocBook because you can easily transform
it into PDF, HTML, RTF, TeX, and lots of other formats.

-- 
These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html

Post a reply to this message

I use Windows and I prefer HTML.

Jim

--

Nathan Kopp <Nat### [at] Koppcom> wrote in message
news:388b6675@news.povray.org...
>
> What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> Unix?
>
> Available formats to choose from:
>
> WordPerfect
> MS Word 97
> MS Word (simple, read by WordPad)
> PostScript
> PDF (only if I can generate it with free tools)
> HTML (export from MS Word)
> Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
> free tools.
>
> (Sorry, but I don't have any tools to generate HLP files for Windows.)
>
> -Nathan
>
>

Post a reply to this message

>I am a Japanese,and Official manual is very difficult to uderstand for me.
>So in my case,
>I take out mainly Syntax from manual and put them into header of source
file.
>
>And I check Token.c,Parser.c etc. files,
>and I add comments(Of cource Japanese) each function,pattern and so on.
>Now I make all images of all functions,pattern and so on,
>then I can not make pattern of  "facets" inside pigments,
>so I check source and add only use inside  "normal" message like this.
>
>I hope plain text is better.
>I attach half way of my manual of functions.
>Of cource I put this in source file.


:O   Bakemono!

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Win. HTML.
Couldn't some sort of generic html be made as a single page (file)?

Bob

Post a reply to this message

Nathan Kopp wrote:
> 
> What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> Unix?
> 
> Available formats to choose from:
> 
> WordPerfect
> MS Word 97
> MS Word (simple, read by WordPad)
> PostScript
> PDF (only if I can generate it with free tools)
> HTML (export from MS Word)
> Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
> free tools.
> 
> (Sorry, but I don't have any tools to generate HLP files for Windows.)
> 
> -Nathan

I use Unix and I prefer ps/pdf for printed documentation, and CLEAN (ie.
not word-generated) HTML for browsing.

-- 
François DISPOT  --  http://www.wozzeck.net
      __  __ __  __  _
|  | /  \  /  / |_  /  |/
\/\/ \__/ /_ /_ |__ \_ |\

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Ron Parker <ron### [at] povrayorg> wrote...
>
> I use Windows and Unix, and I'd like DocBook because you can easily
transform
> it into PDF, HTML, RTF, TeX, and lots of other formats.

Ron,

I develop on a Windows computer.  Are there free tools available for me to
use easily DocBook?  Also, the Smellenbergh brothers work primarily on the
Mac, so free Mac tools are necessary as well.

If that is possible, could you please point me a the general direction to
get started.  I've been to a few websites about DocBook, SGML, and XML, and
they all provided far too much information to be useful for me (I don't have
three years to learn a new tool for creating the MegaPov 0.4 documentation.)
;-)  You can email me with your reply or just post it here.  I'll get it
either way.

Otherwise, we'll probably end up using HTML as the primary format and
converting from that to other formats.

-Nathan

Post a reply to this message

Jon A. Cruz wrote in message <388BA0BB.67F6720A@geocities.com>...
>Nathan Kopp wrote:


>> (Sorry, but I don't have any tools to generate HLP files for Windows.)
>>
>> -Nathan
>
>Hmmm. If you sign up for the free MSDN membership, you might get free
access
>to their help compiler. It's worth looking into.
>

I doubt it.  MS is now pushing HTML-Help, and, quite honestly, I have yet to
see a good
HTMLHelp file.  (The first HTML output I ever saw from MS Word was probably
better!)

Brendt

Post a reply to this message

Ron Parker wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 23 Jan 2000 15:35:55 -0500, Nathan Kopp wrote:
> >
> >What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> >Unix?
> >Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
> >free tools.
> 
> DocBook!  DocBook!

I second that.

-Mark Gordon

Post a reply to this message

Hi Nathan,
so I guess my links confused you, so I take the chance and answer your
question to Ron :-)

As I found out, jade is available for Windows, and I would think, that
someone could get it running on Mac. I am not so much into mac, so don't
ask me for tools.

As of starting with docbook:
Use the definite docbook reference at http://www.docbook.org and an
editor that will support sgml (xml) editing.

I use xemacs and psgml-mode, which are available for windows as well.
But any editor with a DESCENT support will do.

Such an editor will give you some grammar checking based on the DTD you
specify for the file. And then you don't have the choice of some 100
elements, but just about 10-20, and the one you want is generally quite
obvious. psgml gives you a context menu with all valid elements at the
point of the cursor, so that is simple. And you can't do wrong grammar
that way.

So taking good tools, you should be able to get going with docbook in
just a day.

So look for DTD parsing editors with context sensitive element
insertion.

Axel

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 17:59:48 -0500, Nathan Kopp wrote:
>
>Ron Parker <ron### [at] povrayorg> wrote...
>>
>> I use Windows and Unix, and I'd like DocBook because you can easily
>transform
>> it into PDF, HTML, RTF, TeX, and lots of other formats.
>
>Ron,
>
>I develop on a Windows computer.  Are there free tools available for me to
>use easily DocBook?  Also, the Smellenbergh brothers work primarily on the
>Mac, so free Mac tools are necessary as well.

I'm still looking for a good SGML editor.  FrameMaker+SGML looks really nice,
but it's horribly expensive.  WordPerfect has an SGML mode, too.  I have WP
at the office, and someday I'll get around to checking out its SGML support.
The best editing solution I've found is psgml-mode for emacs, which is free,
but if you're not used to emacs you might not like it.  There are commercial
XML editors, such as XMetal.  There's also XED, 
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ht/xed.html which you might find less intimidating 
than psgml-mode.  A Mac version isn't currently available, but is in 
development.  Another browser/editor is jumbo, http://xml-cml.org/jumbo/ which 
is in Java and available for the Mac.  SGML/XML itself is a lot like HTML, so 
you shouldn't have any trouble editing it by hand.  The main difference you'll 
find is that in DocBook, you tag things by function rather than by appearance 
(like HTML was supposed to work.)

The W3C has a bunch of links to XML software, some of which is written in 
Java.  See http://www.w3.org/XML/#software .  Another good list of XML and
SGML tools is at http://209.41.82.30/cover/publicSW.html .

Jade apparently isn't available for the Mac, but it is available in source
form so presumably one could build it for the Mac.  Failing that, there is
YADE, written in Java.  Jade and YADE are DSSSL stylesheet processors, used
to convert DocBook to other formats.  It's possible that only one of you
would need to be able to use them.

>Otherwise, we'll probably end up using HTML as the primary format and
>converting from that to other formats.

If you'll be using hand-edited HTML, you should just make the leap to DocBook,
because it's more powerful and easier to convert to other formats.

-- 
These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html

Post a reply to this message

"Nathan Kopp" <Nat### [at] Koppcom> writes:

> Nathan Kopp <Nat### [at] Koppcom> wrote ...
> >
> > What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> > Unix?
> >
> 
> I guess I worded that poorly.  I was hoping for answers like:
>   "I use unix, and I'd like _____."
> or
>   "I use Windows, and I'd like ______."
> 

I use unix, and I'd like HTML for online browsing (and perhaps gzipped
or zipped Postscript for printing).

Thomas

-- 
http://thomas.willhalm.de/ (includes pgp key)

Post a reply to this message

Nathan Kopp schrieb:

> I guess I worded that poorly.  I was hoping for answers like:
>   "I use unix, and I'd like _____."
> or
>   "I use Windows, and I'd like ______."

I use Unix, and almost everything there can be converted into
almost erverything else (if it is standard compliant and does
not involve the violation of the second law of thermodynamics,
as e.g. back from PS to HTML).

Since it seems that you write (or even already wrote part of)
the manual in Word, the situation is nontrivial: Everything
that Word creates is either proprietary (.doc, .hlp with
additional tools) or noncompliant (broken .ps, broken .html).

Something like SGML or XML might be optimal for the world,
since people who have tools can convert it into everything else
(AFAIK including .rtf, opening the way into the evil empire)
and put on their FTP servers.

OTOH, forcing you to use SGML would cost your time, thus
depriving us all of more cool patches to POV.

A compromise would be to use what you are familiar with,
and publish it as RTF (for those who want to manipulate
it) and HTML for online reading. People who want to print
it can use the export function of the browser (or you just
publish a copy in .ps as well).

Btw., the .ps from MS stuff can be made compliant using

      gs -sDEVICE=pswrite -other_options ...

(but this fixes the resolution and increases the filesize, and
seems to impair quality).

If you can publish only one version, HTML might be optimal
(it can be converted to .ps using browsers and printed,
if necessary).

Ralf

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rmu### [at] t-onlinede (Ralf Muschall) wrote in <388E4B7E.2DAE21BC@t-
online.de>:

>Nathan Kopp schrieb:
>
>> I guess I worded that poorly.  I was hoping for answers like:
>>   "I use unix, and I'd like _____."
>> or
>>   "I use Windows, and I'd like ______."

    	I use Windows, Amiga, Lynix and Mac.  HTML would be my choice above 
all others!  <smile>  I really don't see how HTML is a bad choice for 
printing.  All it takes is a bit of pre-planning; put each page in a fixed 
width table, so the format when printed will look exactly like the format 
on screen, and make sure each page will fit on a printed page.  Use this 
template for every page, and all you have to worry about is what to write, 
not how to format it.
    	Hyperlinks are, by far, more important to me than pretty printouts 
anyway.  If you want to get fancy, some simple scripts can be created to do 
searches on the HTML pages that will work on any modern browser.  But a 
well thought out contents page is fine.

Rich

Post a reply to this message

On 26 Jan 2000 13:12:20 -0500, Rich wrote:
>All it takes is a bit of pre-planning; put each page in a fixed 
>width table, so the format when printed will look exactly like the format 
>on screen, and make sure each page will fit on a printed page.  

Dear God, no!  What of the different screen resolutions in use around here?
Many of us run at 800x600, but many others run at 1600x1200.  No single 
fixed width will work well with both sizes.

PDF is the thing to use if you're going for printed material and you insist
on a layout-based format.  It supports hyperlinks, it is always the same 
layout, and it has good print quality.  Unfortunately, Acrobat's not available
for the Amiga.

I still contend that a good content-based format (DocBook, TexInfo) would 
be better than any layout-based format (modern HTML, PS, PDF, Word) simply
because it can be converted to lots of different layout-based formats and
subformats (e.g. different stylesheets for different HTML usage.)  Good 
converters also support automatic TOC and index generation.

If nobody else does it, I'll make an attempt to write a template for Word
for DocBook creation.

-- 
These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html

Post a reply to this message

Nathan Kopp wrote:

> What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> Unix?

Plain text (.txt) with references to the included images (if any), and HTML
that incorperates the images with the text.

David
--
Keeper of the family pets.
"You want fish? I got fish. I got fish, and eels, and turtles, and snails, and
frogs, and dragons and cats..."

Post a reply to this message

Bob Hughes wrote:
> 
> Win. HTML.
> Couldn't some sort of generic html be made as a single page (file)?
> 

I agree. HTML. Anything that can run a web browser can read HTML,
making it almost as universal as plain text, and that way it can 
be downloaded or made available online that way (which would allow 
for better distribution of updates if needed). All I ask is an 
index alphabetized by feature with links to the appropriate 
sections. Then in wouldn't matter if the file was all in one or 
split by, for example, what patches the features came from. 
The only gripe I have currently is I have to rummage around 
for a while to find the feature I want to experiment with, but
the actual HTML presentation is just fine.

Charles

Post a reply to this message

Rich wrote:

> rmu### [at] t-onlinede (Ralf Muschall) wrote in <388E4B7E.2DAE21BC@t-
> online.de>:
>
> >Nathan Kopp schrieb:
> >
> >> I guess I worded that poorly.  I was hoping for answers like:
> >>   "I use unix, and I'd like _____."
> >> or
> >>   "I use Windows, and I'd like ______."
>
>         I use Windows, Amiga, Lynix and Mac.  HTML would be my choice above
> all others!  <smile>  I really don't see how HTML is a bad choice for
> printing.  All it takes is a bit of pre-planning; put each page in a fixed
> width table, so the format when printed will look exactly like the format
> on screen, and make sure each page will fit on a printed page.

No
nononononooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

arggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp.


Sorry. It's just that fixed width tables in HTML should be avoided at all
costs. You probably don't know how many pixels to set it to match my fonts to
make things work. Also, MSIE does horrible things to font sizes, but Netscape
does not. Also, even MSIE is maybe 10% off on font sizes between Mac and
Windows...

Also, I think HTML is a good choice, but that the crud that MS Word puts out
and calls HTML is not.

--
"My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box" - W.A.Y.

Post a reply to this message

Ron Parker wrote:
> 
> PDF is the thing to use if you're going for printed material and you insist
> on a layout-based format.  It supports hyperlinks, it is always the same
> layout, and it has good print quality.  Unfortunately, Acrobat's not available
> for the Amiga.
> 

I just found a link to a perl library that supports the creation of pdf
documents:

http://www.pdflib.com

It's in a beta state but a very good german computer magazine publisher
made a very good article about it.

Marc

-- 
Marc Schimmler

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Ken wrote in message <388B878C.B511D811@pacbell.net>...

>.txt is fine by me.

What sensible answer.

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 23 Jan 2000 15:35:55 -0500, Nathan Kopp <Nat### [at] Koppcom> wrote:
>
>What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
>Unix?
>
>Available formats to choose from:
>
>WordPerfect
>MS Word 97
>MS Word (simple, read by WordPad)
>PostScript
>PDF (only if I can generate it with free tools)
>HTML (export from MS Word)
>Some other format that I could easily generate from a MS Word file using
>free tools.

ASCII rocks.

-- 
Cheers
Steve              email mailto:sjl### [at] ndirectcouk

%HAV-A-NICEDAY Error not enough coffee  0 pps. 

web http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~sjlen/

or  http://start.at/zero-pps

  5:24am  up 1 day,  3:54,  4 users,  load average: 2.01, 2.03, 2.00

Post a reply to this message

>
>I develop on a Windows computer.  Are there free tools available for me to
>use easily DocBook?  Also, the Smellenbergh brothers work primarily on the
>Mac, so free Mac tools are necessary as well.
>
>If that is possible, could you please point me a the general direction to
>get started.  I've been to a few websites about DocBook, SGML, and XML, and
>they all provided far too much information to be useful for me (I don't have
>three years to learn a new tool for creating the MegaPov 0.4 documentation.)
>;-)  You can email me with your reply or just post it here.  I'll get it
>either way.
>
>Otherwise, we'll probably end up using HTML as the primary format and
>converting from that to other formats.

Whatever you end up with producing it'd also be really good if you could
include a zipped up plain text version, it's so versatile and doesn't
require heavy duty software like web browsers.  

Call me regresive if you like but I'm moving away from GUI stuff at a 
high speed,  plain text doesn't get broken or misinterpreted the way
other formats do. 

-- 
Cheers
Steve              email mailto:sjl### [at] ndirectcouk

%HAV-A-NICEDAY Error not enough coffee  0 pps. 

web http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~sjlen/

or  http://start.at/zero-pps

  5:24am  up 1 day,  3:54,  4 users,  load average: 2.01, 2.03, 2.00

Post a reply to this message

>
>    	I use Windows, Amiga, Lynix and Mac.  HTML would be my choice above 
>all others!  <smile>  I really don't see how HTML is a bad choice for 
>printing.  All it takes is a bit of pre-planning; put each page in a fixed 
>width table, so the format when printed will look exactly like the format 
>on screen, and make sure each page will fit on a printed page.  Use this 
>template for every page, and all you have to worry about is what to write, 
>not how to format it.
>    	Hyperlinks are, by far, more important to me than pretty printouts 
>anyway.  If you want to get fancy, some simple scripts can be created to do 
>searches on the HTML pages that will work on any modern browser.  But a 
>well thought out contents page is fine.


Nothing worse than a helpdesk call caused by someone trying 
to print a 60 page document that's using American page sizes.

Please don't inflict this on us.

-- 
Cheers
Steve              email mailto:sjl### [at] ndirectcouk

%HAV-A-NICEDAY Error not enough coffee  0 pps. 

web http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~sjlen/

or  http://start.at/zero-pps

  5:24am  up 1 day,  3:54,  4 users,  load average: 2.01, 2.03, 2.00

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 23 Jan 2000 15:35:55 -0500, "Nathan Kopp" <Nat### [at] Koppcom>
wrote:

>
>What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
>Unix?

How about a manpage? <grin>


Peter Popov
pet### [at] usanet
ICQ: 15002700

Post a reply to this message

Peter Popov <pet### [at] usanet> wrote:
: How about a manpage? <grin>

  Not a bad suggestion, after all.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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