Re: using @titlepage in every format

[Patrice Dumas]

On Fri, Mar 22, 2019 at 09:51:48PM +0000, Gavin Smith wrote:
> 
> I still think a different command from @titlepage should be used.  That 
> would give the chance to get rid of layout commands like @sp in the 
> source of manuals.  Inserting the contents of @titlepage automatically 
> into the Top node in Info and HTML could have bad results for some 
> existing manuals.
> 
> Maybe the <bookinfo> element of DocBook could be imitated and @bookinfo 
> could be the name of this new command.  If there is some precedent for 
> this in LaTeX, that could also give some ideas (I didn't find any in the 
> time I spent on it.)  Other ideas: @manualinfo, @documentinfo.

I think that we do not want to do as DocBook where everything is
semantic.  I think that we still want to have something mostly semantic,
but with formatting still in the hand of the user.  For example, the
user could want to add an institution, or names of a jury or whatever on
the title.

To me there is a need for some information that corresponds to the
title, author, date, version of the software, and some additional info
that would be manual specific (institutions, subtitle, ...) and together
that information has a semantic unity, and correspond to the manual
basic information thatshould come at the very beginning of the manual.
I think that this information should be output in most if not all
formats and I also think that the corresponding code should be the same
for every format.

If you don't want this to be @titlepage, fine, but I really think that
there is such need.

> New commands could be invented to store the ISBN and other information, 
> or maybe there could be a command @titleverso to store this 
> miscellaneous information.  @titleverso might be thought to be the 
> entire verso side of the title page, so maybe @titleversoextra.  Or 
> maybe @titleverso could specify the entire page and provide a default 
> version
> 
> @titleverso
> @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
> @insertcopying
> @sp 1
> @end titleverso
> 
> I thought of using @colophon or maybe @imprint, but these words seem not 
> to have a very exact meaning.

I agree that it is probably the way to go to be more semantic while at
the same time isolating things that are relevant in every format.

Other possible similar semantic environment could a @abstract/@summary,
@dedication/@thanks/@acnkowledgments.

-- 
Pat