Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH DOCDAY] use lynx to produce better formatted text documentation from markdown

[Matt Wilson <msw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 07:16:54AM -0700, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Matt Wilson writes ("Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH DOCDAY] use lynx to produce 
> better formatted text documentation from markdown"):
> > I'm certainly not suggesting that we add a web browser to the build
> > dependencies. If lynx isn't installed, the current behavior of copying
> > the markdown file is maintained.
> > 
> > If a packager wishes to produce prettier text documentation, they can
> > elect to add lynx to their build dependencies. Today doing this
> > post-build from build control files is a bit tricky, since we drop the
> > semantic information conveyed by the .markdown suffix by calling the
> > final file .txt.
> > 
> > 4.2 will be the first release with markdown documentation. I think
> > that making it well formatted, just as the previous .txt
> > documentation, will be a better experience for the user.
> 
> I tend to agree with this line of argument.  But I have orthogonal
> queries:
> 
> Firstly, why lynx and not w3m ?  Is lynx even maintained upstream any
> more ?  Secondly, shouldn't we do the testing for the presence of
> markdown and the html formatter in configure ?

I suppose links or w3m work equally well. I tend to personally like
links' formatting over w3m. The last lynx development release was in
2010, whereas the latest links release was June 26, 2012. The latest
w3m release was in January 2011.

Adding these checks in configure is a good idea. It's a good method of
communicating the tools that can be or must be present for a
successful build of the auxiliary pieces of Xen.

Unfortunately I lost the build environment I set up that has the
correct version of autoconf, etc. so it might take a few days before I
can cook up a new version that adds autoconf checks.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Matt


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