PackagingDrafts/HtmlDocs

HTML preferred over INFO

GNU packages have documentation provided as texinfo files. These can be translated into (the most popular ones) info, html (in single-page or multi-page format), pdf or plain text. Currently only info documents are generated.

There was a suggestion users nowadays prefer more for example html than the info documents. It is an idea derived from Jan Pazdziora's man page format suggestion, although the man page target format is not applicable to the texinfo source format.

Proposal

While info documents should remain available proposing to also generate single-page html format and the pdf format.

As info is normally stored compressed (.info.gz, 411KB) it is much smaller than .html (2280KB). Therefore proposing to move both all the info, html and pdf documentation into separate -doc subpackages. Man pages are generally available still in the main packages for the basic information.

Example

Package gdb-7.2.50.20110213-23.fc15 is now using the proposed format.

Implementation

%package doc
Summary: Documentation for ###package-Summary###
License: ###may-be-different-such-as-GFDL###
Group: Documentation
BuildArch: noarch

%description doc
###brief package description###

This package provides INFO and HTML user manual for ###package###.

%files doc
%doc ###path-in-build-dir###/###manual1###.html
%doc ###path-in-build-dir###/###manual1###.pdf
%doc ###path-in-build-dir###/###manual2###.html
%doc ###path-in-build-dir###/###manual2###.pdf
%defattr(-,root,root)
%{_infodir}/###manual1###.info*
%{_infodir}/###manual2###.info*