On Tue, Dec 24, 2024 at 01:24:05PM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> Hello,
>
> With
> https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/texinfo.git/commit/?id=657e67c1b9ec217fe3ea2e0431f717407e553854
>
> I changed the formatting of printindex in HTML following Per Bothner
> advice. I did no only put the letter in the same column as the index
> entry, I also
> * replaced the <hr> before the letter by a table border
> * removed the header explaining what is in the columns. Mainly because
> it looks awkward with the letter before the columns, and also because
> I think that it is of limited use, the table could be considered as
> "auto-descriptive"
>
> Removing the <hr> changes the output in text-based browser, but in the
> one I tested, the output looks good to me as the letter on its own on
> aline gives enough structure.
>
> Comments?
In the first manual I checked ("m4"), the first thing I noticed
was not related to the change you made. The non-alphabetic initials
are on their own row, which looks bad for this manual as there is only
one of them. It is the same at
https://www.gnu.org/software/m4/manual/html_node/Macro-index.html
The underscore just looks like a line over the A.
I don't know what the best solution is for this as it looks ok
when there are more of them, e.g. in the "texinfo" manual:
https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/Command-Index.html
One solution that I think would look fine would be to group all
non-alphabetical initials under the same heading ("*"), although that
would be a big change that might not work well for all manuals.
A simple fix would be to put the non-alphabetic initials in the same
row as the letters if there are only one or two of them.
Putting the initials in the row of a table led to more even spacings,
but doesn't wrap for narrow screens.
I will try to understand the HTML index formatting better and the
different options.
