Multilevel contents for web Emacs documentation?
Will Mengarini
more than 20 pages long. Scrolling thru these at 9600 baud with Lynx
is very tedious. The tables of contents are so long because they give
complete multilevel outlines of the subject, as in
* Editing Programs
+ Major Modes for Programming Languages
+ Lists and Sexps
+ List And Sexp Commands
+ Defuns
+ Indentation for Programs
o Basic Program Indentation Commands
o Indenting Several Lines
etc. It would be much more convenient if these full tables of contents
were preceded by brief tables containing only the top outline level;
for example,
* Editing Programs
* Compiling and Testing Programs
would be 2 adjacent lines, whereas in the full table they're several
pages apart.
I've already prepared my own version of the Emacs manual that is
enhanced in this way, but I did it by hand because I expected it to
involve less typing than it actually did. Now I need to do Elisp, & I
also want the ability to redo the conversion when new versions of the
manuals become available, so I want to automate the process.
However, it seems to me to be such an obvious thing to do that I would
be surprised if it hasn't already been done. Please follow-up here if
you have code that does this. As an example, an input file of
<H1>GNU Emacs Manual</H1>
<P>
<UL>
<LI><A NAME="SEC1" HREF="emacs_0.html#SEC1">Topic 1</A>
<UL>
<LI><A NAME="SEC2" HREF="emacs_1.html#SEC2">Subtopic 1A</A>
<LI><A NAME="SEC3" HREF="emacs_2.html#SEC3">Subtopic 1B</A>
</UL>
<LI><A NAME="SEC4" HREF="emacs_2.html#SEC4">Topic 2</A>
</UL>
would produce an output file of
<H1>GNU Emacs Manual--Brief ToC</H1>
<P>
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="#SEC1">Topic 1</A>
<LI><A HREF="#SEC4">Topic 2</A>
</UL>
<H1>GNU Emacs Manual--Full ToC</H1>
<P>
<UL>
<LI><A NAME="SEC1" HREF="emacs_0.html#SEC1">Topic 1</A>
<UL>
<LI><A NAME="SEC2" HREF="emacs_1.html#SEC2">Subtopic 1A</A>
<LI><A NAME="SEC3" HREF="emacs_2.html#SEC3">Subtopic 1B</A>
</UL>
<LI><A NAME="SEC4" HREF="emacs_2.html#SEC4">Topic 2</A>
</UL>
allowing the brief ToC to be used to jump directly into the desired
topic in the full ToC.