[PnP] idea

[Matijs van Zuijlen]

On Sat, Mar 20, 2004 at 09:53:44PM -0500, Scott Adams wrote:
> [snip] 
> >
> >> I could do word but I'm sure not everyone had that.  But I'm sure
> >> everyone has some form of basic Text editor :)
> >
> >Definitely. We would just have to agree on the formatting of the text.
> >Maybe it's time for some specifics: Who here is able to hand-type HTML?
> >(That's a yes for me.)
> 
> HTML is here...I update my own website by HTML :) rather htan using a
> editor and use pure text (hint hint).  But no one has to be a guru in it
> there are many text to HTML editors out there that convert as well.

It's been some time since this discussion. After considering the
alternative (writing a whole new system to process plain text with some
rules for tables and stuff), I've come to the conclusion that HTML is
definitely the way to go, for the following reasons:

- Anyone can edit HTML, either by hand or using some HTML-editor (hey,
  they could even use Word for that).

- There exists software to clean out whatever quirks individual editors
  might introduce into the HTML (It's called tidy, at
  <http://tidy.sourceforge.net/>).

- There exists software to convert HTML to other formats, including
  plain text (Rejoice!).

We (I) may have to write a few simple tools:

- Although tidy does a good job of cleaning out HTML, we may need to
  remove or change some more bits.

- We need something to renumber sections and references to them.

- We need something to regenerate tables of contents and related items.

We also need to decide if the `master' HTML version will be one file, or
a set of files.

-- 
Matijs van Zuijlen