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DavidGriffith / inform6unix

The Inform6 compiler Unix package (moved to https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/inform6unix)
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Open Documentation #8

Open catdisc opened 8 years ago

catdisc commented 8 years ago

I see now that you've removed the non-free Inform 6 Designer's Manual. I wanted to mention that there is openly licensed documentation available, in the form of the Inform Beginner's Guide, as the authors were willing to re-license it to something compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). (The manual previously disallowed profit and modification, both of which conflicted with the DFSG.) While not a replacement for the Inform 6 Designer's Manual it is a start to something. I'm sending it your way in case you're interested in adding it. Notice the updated page 2.

I'm told that it was originally done in Adobe FrameMaker, which is proprietary, and that the source files have been lost; all that remains is the PDF. But since the PDF has text that can be copied out my hope is that, someday, it can be converted back into something more editable than a PDF.

IBG.pdf

DavidGriffith commented 8 years ago

Somehow inform-fiction.org is still serving up the second edition. I'll contact Roger Firth and see if he'd be interested in accepting changes to make a fourth edition. I'd like to do this hypothetical new edition in LaTeX.

zondo commented 8 years ago

Might I suggest using Sphinx for the converted documentation format? It's more contributor-friendly than LaTeX and makes really great-looking online docs. It's such a nice way to produce documentation that I'll even volunteer to do the main conversion.

DavidGriffith commented 8 years ago

Sphinx looks nice. I just now emailed Roger Firth to see how he feels about this effort.

DavidGriffith commented 8 years ago

I just now got Roger's blessing to do this. We're clear to produce a fourth edition. I'm particularly keen on getting it updated to cover changes up to Compiler 6.33 and Library 6/12. We could start this as a repo under https://github.com/i6. How does that sound?

zondo commented 8 years ago

Ok, if you're happy with Sphinx/reStructuredText format, just create a repo under there and give me commit access; I'll make a start on a conversion.

DavidGriffith commented 8 years ago

done

zondo commented 8 years ago

Great. I'll get started on it some time this week.

DavidGriffith commented 8 years ago

Did you get the source files I emailed you?

zondo commented 8 years ago

Yes I did, thanks. Very kind of Mr Firth to make them available. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything that'll read FrameMaker files except FrameMaker itself. But the images and screenshots are separate, and will be very useful. Together with text dumped from the PDF file, that should be enough to get it done.

I'm just getting the initial repo in a fit state for publication; conversion is done up to the end of chapter 1 so far. Should have something ready for upload this evening. And then you can test how well I've written my build instructions :-)

DavidGriffith commented 8 years ago

Will Sphinx be able to emit something that can be sent to be made into a bound book?

zondo commented 8 years ago

Yes -- Sphinx has a big bunch of output formats, including LaTeX for producing PDFs. Check out the Sphinx link a few comments back for the details.

zondo commented 8 years ago

Ok, after a bit of hg-git annoyance, the initial repo is uploaded. Give it a go!