| org.eclipse.cdt.linux.help -- asking for comments [message #25553] |
Tue, 23 April 2002 11:40  |
Eclipse User |
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org.eclipse.cdt.linux.help -- asking for comments
This is a very brief outline of how the org.eclipse.cdt.linux.help
component of the CDT is going to change and it is here so people can
share their ideas, comments and concerns.
THE CURRENT SITUATION: only "local" projects
Currently, the org.eclipse.cdt.linux.help plugin in the CDT works
only with "local" projects. It allows you to index/search html(via
lucene), search man(via whatis) and info pages(by looking at the top dir
node). It uses two browsers: konqueror(kde) or gnome-help-browser(gnome)
to display documentation (html, man and info pages). We used these
browsers because they implicitly convert man and info pages to html for
display-- and add links to other man, info pages.
THE PROBLEM: Need to make it work for "remote" projects
The help is becoming a miner so that it can work with remote
projects. But, we cannot use these browsers to do the man to html or
info to html conversion. And we also have to consider a nonlinux
client(e.g windows) connected to a linux server. So here is what we are
planning:
- We are planning on using tomcat in the server to serve html
documentation to the client (This would preserve the links in html).We
would have a simple servlet that would know how to find a man or info
page and convert it to html before serving it to the client.
- There are two ways to do the conversion from man/info to html:
either use available tools(e.g. man2html, info2html) or write our own.
Although we would prefer to reuse an existing utility they do not come
with all linux distributions. We cannot package them because these tools
are GPL (i.e. incompatible with the Common Public License). We may have
to write our own. For man pages, we may just ask groff to produce
html(-Thtml) and do a second pass adding links to the "SEE ALSO"
sections (i.e we avoid looking at all those man macros).
An info to html convertor seems necessary.
- We plan on using whatever browser eclipse provides in the client
and point it to our remote servlet.
If you have some comments/ideas or a better way of doing it, then feel
free to share your ideas with us.
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| Re: org.eclipse.cdt.linux.help -- asking for comments [message #27221 is a reply to message #27143] |
Mon, 29 April 2002 11:21  |
| Eclipse User |
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Hi Tom,
We (meaning myself and those on my team) are not lawyers and we would need to obtain legal approval before doing
something like this. However, we can discuss the technical issue that some of these tools are C code and not binary
portable, which may be enough to prevent us from going down this path anyway.
Jeff.
"Tom Tromey" <tromey@redhat.com> wrote in message news:87vgaekvjh.fsf@creche.redhat.com...
> >>>>> "Enrique" == Enrique Varillas <enriquev@ca.ibm.com> writes:
>
> Enrique> - There are two ways to do the conversion from man/info to
> Enrique> html: either use available tools(e.g. man2html, info2html) or
> Enrique> write our own. Although we would prefer to reuse an existing
> Enrique> utility they do not come with all linux distributions. We
> Enrique> cannot package them because these tools are GPL
> Enrique> (i.e. incompatible with the Common Public License).
>
> Could you elaborate on this point? Wouldn't packaging these and
> distributing them with Eclipse fall into the "mere aggregation" clause
> of the GPL and thus be ok?
>
> Tom
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