Re: using @titleplage in every format

[Patrice Dumas]

On Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 06:43:32PM +0000, Gavin Smith wrote:
> On 2/18/19, Patrice Dumas <address@hidden> wrote:
> > The typical document would become
> 
> > @titlepage
> > @title Texinfo
> > @subtitle The GNU Documentation Format
> > @subtitle for Texinfo version @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
> >
> > @author Robert J. Chassell
> > @author Richard M. Stallman
> >
> > @page
> > @vskip 0pt plus 1filll
> > @insertcopying
> >
> > @sp 1
> > @end titlepage
> 
> Thinking about this again, if @titlepage were to be used for all
> formats, it should be purged of all presentational or non-semantic
> content. The @page, @vskip and @sp commands there are specific to TeX.

Actually, in my experiments, the titlepage formatted like that looks
pretty good in HTML, in an old-fashionned way, and somehow similar to 
the TeX counterpart.

> How about adding a new command, something like
> 
> @documentinfo
> @title Texinfo
> @subtitle The GNU Documentation Format
> @subtitle for Texinfo version @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
> 
> @author Robert J. Chassell
> @author Richard M. Stallman
> 
> @end documentinfo
> 
> which would automatically be converted into @titlepage with the
> @insertcopying etc. on a second page, and inserted in the @top node
> for Info/HTML/other output. @titlepage would be left for precisely
> describing the layout of a printed titlepage and other frontmatter.

I think that it would be better to have only one @titlepage for every
format, which would not prevent from using @if* in it.  It does not
prevent from using something like @documentinfo and @insertdocumentinfo
or something like that to be able to set independently the meta data and
format the @titlepage, but to me that's a different issue.

> Regarding whether @top gets an argument, I found that even an empty
> @top followed by a @chapter creates a blank page as well an entry in
> the table of contents. This is something that could be changed in
> texinfo.tex, of course. A document using @documentinfo (or whatever
> better interface we devise) along with an empty "@top" wouldn't work
> with older versions of texinfo.tex anyway.

Would that be an issue?  For older versions compatibility, still using
@ifnottex around @top would be the way to go.

-- 
Pat