[Info-vax] Online and offline VMS documentation in HTML format

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Den 2021-10-03 kl. 15:12, skrev Craig A. Berry:
> 
> On 10/3/21 3:48 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>> Den 2021-10-02 kl. 18:42, skrev Simon Clubley:
>>
>>> Does anyone else think it would be useful for VSI to supply and
>>> host HTML versions of the documentation so that you could point
>>> someone directly to a section of the manual without them having
>>> to download the whole manual or having to read an older version
>>> of the documentation online at a third party site ?
>>>
>>> Simon.
>>>
>>
>> I kind of like the page oriented style of PDF docs. If there is
>> something I'd need to sit down and read properly, I can easily
>> print 10-20 pages and get an easy to read version.
>>
>>  > without them having to download the whole manual...
>>
>> What is the problem? I just tried a few of the PDF files from VSI,
>> and it is 1-3 sec per manual, more or less instant. The Cobol Ref
>> Manual (6,7 MB) took approx 1 sec.
>>
>> Yes, HTML has some good sides, such as cross linking between different
>> parts of the docs, but then you have to write/design your docs that way
>> from the start. But I do not think this particular question is one of
>> the major ones for VSI to care about right now.
> 
> It's not an either/or situation.  Professional tech writers will most
> likely be using XML in a DocBook schema, which can readily be
> transformed to PDF, HTML, and numerous other formats.  The anchor tags
> could be automatically generated for section headings or even paragraphs
> to provide the direct links that Simon was asking about.  And yes, it
> would be nice to have such links.
> 

I have not anything specific against HTML, only it if takes time from
other projects from VSI. In that case, the PDFs are just fine.

I just did not understood what the problem was with downloading
a coupe of MBs today.