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The Wednesday 2007-12-12 at 22:59 -0500, François Pinard wrote:
I'm surprised when people say that it is a nightmare to read Info format
documentation, as it is really a very simple thing to do, for anyone with any
small drop of good will. Nightmares, I would better understand for those
having had a bad life and consequently, agitated sleep :-).
But I'm kidding a bit, and know that some people who cannot stand Info are
mouse addicts, while "info" requires the keyboard. For those who do not
know, the keyboard is that big huge mouse next to the usual one, absolutely
full of buttons, and which does not slide very well! :-)
I don't think it is a nightmare, but I do find its keyboard interface
awkward. I came to expect programs using the cursor to navigate, enter to
select... etc. Ie, I expect it to behave like "pinfo".
Sometimes info, or rather, pinfo, doesn't select the page I expect, but
another; and I simply do not know how to tell it to search again. I'm
trying to remember an example, but can't find it... but there is one that
when I want, I get instead a "yes no something" page instead.
The simple truth is that Info never succeeded at taking over man pages in
Linux. It would have been a good thing: Info is a superior documentation
format in many ways. But life is that the amount of existing man pages is
overwhelming, so all in all, and as sad as it is,
Info is not practical, even if it would have been better.
Sometimes I do not like to browse: I prefer an expanded view with all in a
single page, to read it from start to end. That is not selectable. Browse
mode is better when you already know something and want to view a small
part. But I hate when I have to navigate several subnodes to find the
exact part I'm looking for, in trial and error browse mode. I then prefer
the man page, if it exists, because a simple search finds it - if I
remember an string, of course.
I think that info pages are not bad, it's a good idea, that could benefit
from a reviewed interface.
And, as a translator, I simply have no idea how to translate info pages. I
do not have to understand tags and things. I translate text. The fact is
that not even "info info" is translated! (to Spanish). That is
significative of the difficulty. There is no GUI program to easily
edit/translate info pages. Something like LyX, for instance.
For instance, "man man" is translated to Spanish... not that many pages
are translated, only a few, and many are obsolete. But info pages? I don't
know of any.
Even man pages are difficult to translate... do you know what I do? I edit
them directly with mcedit, which has syntax coloring.
Program translation have the gettext utilities, and programs like poedit
or kbabel to facilitate things. Info? Man? None.
That's a complete failure, IMO.
- --
Cheers,
Carlos E. R.
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