On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 08:45:04AM +0200, Sébastien Villemot wrote:
> AFAIK, makeinfo is not able to render @math blocks as images (formatted
> with LaTeX), while texi2html does. The output of math formulas with
> makeinfo --html is very ugly, since it basically dumps the Texi/LaTeX
> source of the formula in the HTML.
I didn't know that, but that seems to be right according to §14.6 of the
Texinfo manual[0]. The other differences between texi2html and makeinfo
are documented in §22.8 of the Texinfo manual[1].
> I would therefore prefer to keep texi2html around (until makeinfo
> grows the missing feature). I use the ability to have nice math
> formulas in HTML in one of my scientific packages.
That sounds very fair. I can update the texi2html package to the 5.0
upstream release (Closes: #615812) and just disable the test checking
which was causing FTBFS---even the pristine upstream tarball fails its
tests!
Norbert, as Texinfo maintainer, do you know if upstream has an ITA for
when the math-images-in-HTML will arrive in makeinfo?
Again, to quote from the texi2html front page[2],
the route forward for authors is, in most cases, to alter manuals
and build processes as necessary to use the new features of the
makeinfo/texi2any implementation of GNU Texinfo. The Texi2HTML
maintainers (one of whom is the principal author of the GNU Texinfo
implementation) do not intend to make further releases of Texi2HTML.
On the basis of Sébastien's objection, I propose the MBF to have
severity wishlist and the following amended text. Not everybody will be
able to transition from texi2html, but those who can should. It will be
easier to transition the remaining few packages that use math
functionality when makeinfo gains those features than to additionally
have to transition all those that could have transitioned now.
-- BEGIN AMENDED MBF TEXT --
Dear maintainer,
[ This is an automated bug report, submitted as part of the mass bug
filing discussed at TODO-ADD-URL-TO-DEVEL-THREAD-HERE ]
The texi2html package on which your package depends or build-depends is
unmaintained upstream and destined to be removed from the archive in the
near future. Unless your package makes use of texi2html functionality
not yet provided by `makeinfo' utility from the texinfo package, e.g.
rendering @math blocks as images in HTML output, please update your
package to use `makeinfo' instead. More details may be found at
http://wiki.debian.org/Texi2htmlTransition .
Thanks for considering,
Best wishes.
-- END AMENDED MBF TEXT --
[0] http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/texinfo.html#Inserting-Math
[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/texinfo.html#texi2html
[2] http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/
--
|_)|_/ Ryan Kavanagh | Debian Developer
| \| \ http://ryanak.ca/ | GPG Key 4A11C97A
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