[DOC-SIG] Python Library Reference in new HTML form

[Laurence Tratt]

> Editor-based help can be a big plus, so it makes a lot of sense to
> have a new conversion to do that.
> With the coming release, the Module Index is directly addressable by 
> name, no "node####.html" cruft!  That makes it bookmarkable, so
> eliminates a least having to wade through the Table of Contents.  It's 
> also a lot shorter, so it loads faster!

That will be better. As far as I can see, though, the only way to get 
editor help is to do the splitting up of files that I've done. Unless 
each module has one monolithic page you can't really do #### sort of
stuff, but having everything on one page would be horrendous.

>> Hmmm, you should see the regular expression code I've got to do 
>> links. It's not very long, perhaps 3 or 4Kb, but already  
> Hm.. perhaps I shouldn't see it!

Well, it works and it would be a lot worse if I parsed it manually :)

> Most of the markup changes are to take advantage of the
> newer markup I've defined, shift the whole mess to a more modern LaTeX 
> (version 2e instead of 2.09), and improve the general consistency of
> the markup.

Eek. I bet it'll break my entire converter :) Is it a big markup 
change, or is it largely the same as before?

> The drive behind releasing it at this point it that I've promised it 
> to the people who wanted a LaTeX source release.  Most of those
> requests really just want it on A4 paper.  (Maybe I should just
> provide a PostScript version formatted for A4?)

Personally I can't imagine printing out this sort of stuff on A4 but 
that's because I could never justify the expense and I find it as 
easy to look at it on screen. Surely postscript would be easier for 
most people, but you'll always get a tiny minority who want it on 
A4.6 or some bizarre proprietary size, triple sided or something else 
which means they'll want the source and not the "binary".


Laurie

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