[Mono-dev] Mono.Addins in Monodoc

[Lluis Sanchez]

El dj 20 de 12 del 2007 a les 10:15 -0600, en/na Mike Kestner va
escriure:
> On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 14:56 +0100, Lluis Sanchez wrote:
> 
> > > The idea is that Mike wants to switch to use GtkTextView to render the
> > > documentation, and at the same time, this would allow us to implement
> > > editing very easily.
> > 
> > Even if GtkHtml is very limited, it is much better than GtkTextView in
> > rendering text. At least it can render tables, borders, change
> > background colors, etc. GtkTextView can't do that.
> 
> It won't be a TextView, though it may embed one in editing mode if that
> makes things easier.  When Miguel and I talked on the phone, I said
> "Custom Gtk# Widget" though I can understand how he could have assumed
> it would be a TextView subclass.
> 
> >  Maybe implementing
> > editing would be easier with GtkTextView, but most of people will use
> > MonoDoc for reading rather than writing documentation. So I don't think
> > reducing the text rendering capabilities to make it easier to edit
> > documentation is a good deal.
> 
> I don't recall anyone mentioning "Reduce Text Rendering Capabilities" as
> a feature for the revisions.  

I didn't say that's a feature, but it would be a side affect of using
GtkTextView instead of GtkHtmlView for rendering. Although it's now
clear that you didn't mean to use it in that way, so no problem.

> I'll try to spend some time developing a
> plan in the next couple weeks and publish it so everyone can poke holes
> in it.
> 
> A couple things are fairly clear to me:  
> 
> 1. Using an HTML widget for monodoc rendering is overkill for the layout
> we require, and providing Gecko and GtkHTML on all the platforms we want
> to target with monodoc is a PITA.

Then maybe we should define what we expect MonoDoc to be. If MonoDoc
will be only a class library documentation browser and editor, a custom
widget for rendering class information would be enough. If MonoDoc
intends to be a general purpose documentation browser, which includes
not only class libraries but also documentation about C#, errors,
development tools, user guides, tutorials, etc, then we clearly need
something as generic as HTML.

> 
> 2. Adding WYSIWYG editing to any tool which is based on an HTML widget
> rendering information already passed through an xslt transformation is
> going to be problematic.
> 
>