[Mono-docs-list] Web-based MonoDoc?

[Miguel de Icaza]

Hello,

> "In the future we will have an ASP.NET front-end to present the
> documentation 
> on the web as well". Is anyone doing active development on that front? Does 
> anyone have a plan, or even just quick notes on what's required to achieve 
> this?

Nobody is working on this right now.

> Is there currently a relatively simple (don't mind if it's ugly) known hack 
> that I missed that would let me deliver Monodoc content on the web in a
> matter 
> of minutes (an hour would do :))?

For the "1 hour hack", I suggest this:

	* Monodoc can generate HTML.

	* The urls that Monodoc generates are Monodoc-urls, so they need
	  to be mapped into some sort of cgi-bin to re-query things.

	* The HTML we generate should hopefully be processable with an
	  XML/XSLT processor.  

So you only need to rewrite urls that do not start with http:// to
include some sort of processor.  So things like:

	<a href="T:System.Char">

Needs to be changed into:

	<a href="cgi-bin/run-monodoc?T:System.Char">

Or something along those lines.

> Looking at the source I figured the easiest way, if using only the ECMA 
> Provider (that's the only one I need myself...), would be to modify 
> mono-ecma.xsl in order to prepend a cgi script in front of URLs, such as 
> "monodoc.cgi?", and then have a cgi script that invokes 
> "monodoc --html QUERY_STRING". 

Something like that would work too.  

> The more generic way would be to have Providers support URL prepending, and 
> have each of them implement it in whatever way it needs to (which, in the 
> ECMA Provider's case, would require modifying the XSLT amongst other 
> things...). 
> 
> I believe this may be required no matter what, even if using ASP.NET instead

My feeling is that this should be handled by an upper layer processor.

Miguel