Date:	Wed, 24 May 2000 13:18:14 +0300 (IDT)
From:	Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
X-Sender:	eliz AT is
To:	RadSurfer <Radsmail AT juno DOT com>
cc:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: Lib Funcs in TEXT format PLEASE
In-Reply-To:	<8gfeb4$eqt$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Message-ID:	<Pine.SUN.3.91.1000524131733.13642J-100000@is>
MIME-Version:	1.0
Reply-To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Errors-To:	nobody AT delorie DOT com
X-Mailing-List:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
X-Unsubscribes-To:	listserv AT delorie DOT com

On Wed, 24 May 2000, RadSurfer wrote:

> The 'info.exe' works; but in itself NOT very impressive:

There are other alternatives to reading Info docs; see section 5.1 of
the DJGPP FAQ for details.

> 1) the size of that font is VERY TINY
>    1a) is there anyway to ENLARGE the font two or THREE times?

Are you running Info on Windows?  If so, the font can be changed by
selecting a different size in the upper-left corner of the window.
Another possibility is to set INFO_LINES=28 in the environment, which
will also work on DOS.  (This is all explained in the README file
which comes with txi40b.zip, the package which brings you info.exe).

>    (why is the :: openly visible? if thats a part of the tex hyperlink
>      mechanism, strikes me as quite primitive!)

Why do you care about this, anyway?  If the hypertext links work for
you, why should it matter that they are shown?  (There are good
reasons why they are shown, but they are probably not important for
you at this stage.)

> 2) Tex format is not really very popular or preferred by most users
>    for a variety of reasons!

What ``Tex format'' did you have in mind?  The info docs don't use any
``Tex format''.

> 3) ASCII TEXT has been and is still THE MOST preferred format for
>    most people.

That's funny: you say that showing hyperlinks is primitive, yet you
are ready to settle for plain ASCII which is even more primitive, and
where the hyperlinks will be totally lost.  All the cross-references
in the docs will not be visible (or at least cannot easily be
followed) in plain ASCII.  You will also lose the index-searching
commands offered by the Info readers, which allow you to find the
information very quickly; this feature alone should be enough to
justify the lack of slick user interface.  See the file README.1ST
which came with DJGPP, under "Reading the documentation, or A Crash
Course in Info", for more hints about efficient use of info.exe.

That said, the Info files are almost plain ASCII anyway.  See section
5.2 of the DJGPP FAQ for more on this.

- Raw text -