[latexrefman-discuss] latexrefman / ltxref.org

[Patrick Gundlach]

Hello Vincent,

> Just a few questions to clarify your needs/objectives:
> 
> - Is your objective to provide a short description (synopsis) for each
>  command, or do you want to make a reference manual (ie exhaustive and
>  factual description) ?

well, kind of both. I'd like to have a synopsis for each command / package / environment and a concise description as well. The description should be long enough to make clear what the command / package / .. is about, but not much more. If it takes an example to that, than I'd include an example. 

> - If you don't use Texinfo to make your site, is that just because you
>  don't know enough Texinfo, otherwise what limitations in Texinfo made
>  you discard it as the language supporting content production ?

I use XML as an export format and as an input format (round trip). See for example 

https://ltxref.org/?format=xml

or for a command (not much filled in yet)

https://ltxref.org/cmd/%5Cdocumentclass?format=xml

texinfo is too verbose for me. The idea is to have a fully and easily parseable output format to generate more interesting stuff that I am not aware of yet. And my day to day work is around XML, so that suggests itself to use that. I just need some help / source to fill in the gaps.


> - What means do you use to develop your site, do you directly write HTML
>  code plus some javascript and CSS to make it more interactive and look
>  nicer ?

First I read the XML file into the server and then generate (templating system) the HTML files from that. 


Patrick