Re: [jazzplusplus-devel] Tex2RTF for online documentation building

[Pete S. <pst...@gm...>]

PS = Pete Stieber
PS>> You correctly surmised that a tex2rtf binary is
PS>> not included with a wxWidgets distribution.  It
PS>> is considered a utility that is not required to
PS>> to use wxWidgets.  It was used to generate the
PS>> documentation for wxWidgets itself, but I believe
PS>> that will not be the case for future versions
PS>> (2.9.* and 3.*) of wxWidgets.
PS>>
PS>> It was lucky for you that you attempted to build
PS>> tex2rtf from a stock build.  Given the options we
PS>> use to build wxWidgets for use with Jazz++, you
PS>> would have run into trouble with the non-stock
PS>> build of tex2rtf.  We use the stl in our wxWidgets
PS>> build, and tex2rtf is not compatible with the stl
PS>> build of wxWidgets.
PS>>
PS>> I have created a patched tex2rtf, that does build
PS>> with our wxWidgets options.  I submitted it to the
PS>> wxWidgets sourceforge patch manager (number 1755801)
PS>> quite a while ago, but the patch caused a problem
PS>> with the stock build.
PS>>
PS>> I guess I have the following options...
PS>>
PS>> 1. Since wxWidgets is switching to a different
PS>> documentation build system, I could try submitting
PS>> the patch again, but the process will take up a lot
PS>> of my Jazz++ development time.
PS>> 2. I could create a fork of tex2rtf in our development
PS>> tree so I could change it in any way I like.  This is
PS>> my favorite option at this point.
PS>> 3. I could make binaries available for download.  I
PS>> don't like this idea because there might be some
PS>> platforms I have difficulty generating and testing a
PS>> binary on.

DM> Yeah...don't do option 3, it's perilous considering
DM> how many platforms are out there. When we get around
DM> to doing binary packages, the documentation will have
DM> already been built and included there - this infers
DM> the source tree compiles the documentation. If there's
DM> a future wherein jazz++ is supposed to compile from
DM> source tarball release on a package-managed system
DM> against a *stock* wxwidgets tree, the only way that's
DM> going to happen is if tex2rtf is available, and
DM> by the sounds of it this might not be the case.
DM>
DM> Do we know of anything else dependent on tex2rtf in
DM> the real world?

I use it at my place of work.  BTW, the wxWidgets documentation is for 
the wxWidgets library.  They switched to doyxgen, which makes sense for 
a code library.  User documentation for an application like Jazz++ is a 
different story.

DM> I like option 2.  - it neatly gets around all this
DM> conjecture by being part of the jazz++ tree, and
DM> offers the most flexibility overall (without need
DM> to rework things already done).

I found the following pose on the wxWidgets list from 3/22/2008...

<wxWidgets Developers List>
 >   4) tex2rtf => I don't know if someone is using this outside
 > wxWidgets... but I think that if this is the case, the version
 > in the 2.8 branch could be enough (I don't see future
 > developments for this tool likely to happen)

Yes, I had already asked about it and Julian agreed with this.
</wxWidgets Developers List>

So I just made a post on the list asking if anyone would mid a fork of 
the project.

PS>> I do like tex2rtf's capabilities, and I do want to
PS>> use it for online HTML help.  What do you all think?

DM> It generates correct HTML, it's quick, and you've a
DM> history with it.  In my country, we have a saying -
DM> "When you're on a good thing - stick to it!" -- I
DM> believe that idiom applies here.  (-;

You'll probably see a fork of tex2rtf showing up in the Jazz++ source 
tree by the end of the week.  Maybe I can get you to create a web page 
describing it's history including this discussion and describing the 
build and install procedure ;-)

Pete