On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 01:42:10PM -0400, al davis wrote: > A standard needs to be defined to enable finding that file. > [..] > At one point I suggested texinfo format, but now I don't think > it is the way to go. The help system needs to work without > texinfo (or anything else) installed.
I agree about the levels. but i think it's not a good idea to locate/parse text files at run time. i'd say we should always put help text into .so's. then we do not need to care a lot about - the help text source format we choose (or somebody might choose for his work), - help text run time location, and - run time dependencies it should be easy enough to turn texinfo (or whatever else) into static strings that can be embedded into (a) .cc file(s). this would be done at compile time, and will not affect run time dependencies. also, as i have mentioned in another mail, if help comes within plugins, i can embed help text to custom plugins. it would be nice to have the help texts in a flexible format, so i can e.g. turn it into man pages or postscript. yes, i sometimes even print stuff (on paper). to me, texinfo looks quite optimal. fwiw, this order looks practical to me: - add level 1 help to base classes - create a more verbose manual (texinfo, or something else) - make manual accessible interactively as (a) plugin(s) cheers felix _______________________________________________ Gnucap-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucap-devel
