Re: TFM, no-one.

Dennis Clark (dennis@nospam.ilanet.slnsw.gov.au)
Thu, 18 Jan 1996 16:34:50 +1100 (EST)

In previous mail, Ryan Shelswell wrote:
>
> then why not (c) Write TFM on the Web? We could put TFM on the Web and
> control access to only progsoc members. (This may be a technical problem.
> Can Java do this? How about nonJava netscape or whatever the correct
> term is?)
>
> What do other people think of this? At the very least, we could begin
> putting TFM on the web (I know, I have said this for about 3 years now,
> but I'll keep saying it...:-) )

The biggest technical obstacle is the current file format used for TFM
(LaTeX). In particular, you need to choose from one of the following
approaches:

a) Keep TFM in LaTeX format for the best presentation control for
printing, use latex2html to convert it to HTML, and risk some
ugly conversions of the more powerful LaTeX formatting commands
which don't translate well into HTML;

b) Stick with LaTeX all the way, and convert LaTeX's DVI output to
a more "standard" format such as PostScript or PDF for viewing
by web browser helper applications. These files will look
"perfect", but would be slow to download, unviewable under a
text-only environment, and take up a lot of memory on the browser
end;

c) Stick to HTML all the way, and use the print feature of browsers
such as Netscape to produce a printable version. You loose
quite some presentation control this way, and HTML doesn't
support some needed formatting for printed manuals (such as
custom headers and footers on page breaks);

c) Use Hyperlatex (a subset of LaTeX with some added commands to
allow optimal conversion to HTML). This looks in both formats,
but it means you need to learn a hybrid format.

In other words, it can be done but its more than simply saying "Lets do
it!". We can sort this out at the proposed TFM meeting.

--------------------------------+-----------------------------------
Dennis Clark | Email: dennis@nospam.ilanet.slnsw.gov.au
Programmer, ILANET | Tel: +61 2 230 1424
State Library of NSW | Fax: +61 2 232 8701
"What a tangled WWW we weave!"