Re: @small* commands alias in HTML are problematic

[Gavin Smith]

On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 09:05:31AM +0100, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> > Even if nothing is done in the default case, which I think is the
> > best if we want thos @-command to disappear someday, the information
> > should be present such that it can be done in user defined
> > replacement functions for the formatting.
> 
> It's not clear to me why you are so opposed to the @small variants.  I
> consider them *very* useful for both the HTML and the PDF output
> (especially the latter).

I don't expect that anything will change any time soon for the PDF output
as this would be too disruptive for existing documents.

> IMHO, the 'smallness' is more than just a stylistic thing.  While
> mainly used for horizontally large examples, another application could
> be to mark paragraphs as 'technical' or the like, to be skipped by
> ordinary users.

It would be good to see if anybody was using a @small* command for this.
I don't this usage has ever been recommended.

> I think it is a bad idea if texinfo shifts the responsibility for
> setting up those 'small' things completely to the user.  Whatever you
> are planning for texinfo, you definitely should provide some useful
> defaults to not lose this capability.