On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:29:43 -0700, "Zed A. Shaw" <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 04:13:47PM -0700, Zed A. Shaw wrote: >> Actually, none of this is necessary if you solve this one simple >> problem: >> >> .html will not have the header and active login state of a user, so I >> have to use "wiki", but wiki then has its own set of problems. > > Ok, so I've been able to simulate what I'm trying to do, and I really > think this solves the problem of all the different wiki formats out > there. Take a look at this: > > http://mongrel2.org/doc/tip/docs/manual/book.wiki > > Now, that's the mongrel2 book that I've started, but what's important is > this is generated from a set of TeX files. TeX isn't a wiki format at > all, it's just a typesetting format, but the key is that I'm able to > craft a very nice PDF and produce the documentation with one make > command. > > What the above link does is put the documentation into the mongrel2.org > site so that it fits the overall setup, and people get their login state > links above. Without the ability to craft an html document set and have > the fossil look applied, I'd have to jank around with my own headers and > try to emulate the existing site. No matter what I did I wouldn't be > able to get the login state into the generated html. > > The significance of this is that you can turn on Wiki just like normal. > Leave the wiki format the way it is, but tell people to *user their own > site generator* just like I did. They generate the site in whatever the > hell they want. TeX, Sphinx, Webby, Dexy, some lame ass perl, Creole, > Markdown, Textile who cares. > > What does matter, is if they put into the /doc/tip and end it with .html > (or something similar) then fossil will render it within the fossil > site's look, and leave it alone. It's not wiki, it's not html, it's > *templated* html. > > If we had that then you'd have all the problems solved in one smooth > move. Wiki stays as is, people who want different wiki generate > content, headers get applied along with login state links, and everybody > is happy. > > What you think?
I think you took the right approach for generating a manual. You used 2 excellent tools 1) TeX, which is crafted for typesetting scientific documentation. 2) fossil to keep the sources for your manual. I would be really impressed if there was a program that the structure of the manual would capture in fossil wiki pages. But that defeats fossil and the wiki system because we (wrongly) want to use wiki for generating the manual. Wiki has not the tight structure a manual needs. You can use wiki for documenting, but using sections, tables, artwork, (cross-)references, footnotes, table of contents, nice printing, etc isn't in the realm of wiki. Wiki isn't meant for that http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_purpose_of_a_wiki states "The purpose of Wiki is to help people understand things he or she knows nothing about. Users ask question while other users answer them to the best of their knowledge. The main feature that separates Wiki sites from other encyclopedia-type sites is that the users are able to make contributions to any article on a Wiki, such as adding or improving information, or to build up a community where anyone is free to edit." It is a very loosely knitted web which should be easy to edit using simple formatting. I agree with Richard that the current situation with the wiki is undesirable. Unifying creole, textile, fossil-wiki, html and text is a way forward, which tends to bloat fossil. You can't have your cake and eat it too :-) Maybe it is good to take a step back and state first what the purpose is of the wiki system in fossil. Which will give guidance to us all. Rene _______________________________________________ fossil-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fossil-scm.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fossil-users
