[DOC-SIG] Python Library Reference in new HTML form
David Ascher
da@skivs.ski.org
Tue, 17 Mar 1998 10:58:15 -0800 (PST)
First impressions are very good. I have a few quibbles, which are only
intended to help make a good product very good.
1) On my screen, I had to make the netscape window very big to see the
four columns of the index.html page. I'm not sure what the right
solution to that is.
2) It's too bad that when looking at a given function, I have to look at
the "Parent" link which is in a small font to find out what module it's in.
Is the Parent link always the containing module? Would it be possible
to make that relationship a bit more salient?
3) Since you seem able to generate a lot of indices, I do think that
a lot could be done there:
- a Table of Modules - Alphabetical [sort of like your traditional
index but without the contents of the module, just the links]
- a Table of Platform-Specific Modules, Alphabetical by platform, with
redundancy for 'os':
- Mac
- Unix
* posix
* os
- SGI
- Sun
- Windows
4) Filename problems: on Windows NT SP3, using gnuwin's tar or WinZip, the
directories with spaces in them get written with a \240 as the space
character. At least some HTML links have spaces in them. In other
words, I can't get to the "Built-in Exceptions" or "Python
Tutorial" pages. I suggest using _ as the space-replacing character,
both on disk and in HTML =).
5) Some slight mistakes in linking:
UserList/index.html, the first link to UserDict points to the class,
whereas it should point to the module.
6) Wacky idea, and not for the novice, but still potentially useful: allow
hyperlinks to the source of the modules. It might even be a nice way
to allow semi-novices to learn more about Python. Something to keep on
the back burner.
7) Typesetting comments:
- overall, I like the clean look.
- I don't think the christmas-tree table of contents for the tutorial
is very readable -- I'd make it look more like Python code =):
Whetting Your Appetite:
Disclaimer
Introduction
Where from Here
Using the Python Interpreter:
Invoking the Interpreter
The Interpreter and its Environment
etc.
8) Pages which are within the tutorial should have backlinks to the TOC of
the tutorial.
Cheers,
--da
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