Re: [help-texinfo] Want curly braces around key sequences (Was: Overfull vbox in Concept Index leads to a blank page in the middle of the index)

[Gavin Smith]

On 5 July 2016 at 16:04, Robert Weiner <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 10:35 AM, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> On Sun, Jul 3, 2016 at 11:25 AM, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> > the result [of using braces around key sequences in Info manuals) will 
>>> > confuse the reader
>>>
>>> This is an assumption you are making that has not been borne out by the 
>>> experience of users of these manuals
>>> throughout the years.
>>
>> Does my experience of 30 years of reading Info manuals count?  We can
>> ask RMS to provide a second opinion.
>
> Of course I highly respect both of you and consider all of your
> feedback and will seek more.  On a topic like this, if you really care
> about it, we would ask that you look at and try out Hyperbole before
> finalizing your own judgement on this.

In my opinion, it's really pointless arguing about this. It's a
question of taste that no-one will be convinced about. It's like if I
say that it should be unnecessary to start the name of variables in
Perl with a $ sign, and someone else says that that is a good feature
because it makes them more "variable-y". It seems like the kind of
thing that it's impossible to persuade someone to your own point of
view (even if you are right and they are wrong).

For what it's worth, I didn't know what the braces meant when I
skimmed through the Hyperbole manual the first time.

> There is the problem.  We have a solution for this particular area
> where there is no need to differentiate among the formats, so why
> continue to do so.  By using visible text delimiters in all formats
> you could solve a number of these issues.

It's not necessary to achieve uniformity across the various output
formats in this area. There's no reason why output on paper or on a
graphical display should be subject to the limitations of a typewriter
that can't do different fonts. Besides, there's no need for change
here and it would cause more trouble than it's worth, if it's even
worth anything.

>>> 2. Hyperbole recognizes global key sequences surrounded by braces and can 
>>> activate their key bindings
>>> when selected with the mouse (or via a keyboard key). This is great for 
>>> demos or for frequently accessed long
>>> sequences that may be hard to remember.
>>
>> Any reasons Hyperbole couldn't be taught to recognize any other
>> format, including the standard Texinfo one?
>
> Because, as you said, it differs between different output formats.
> For any given output format, Hyperbole could recognize the delimiters
> and usage if they were specific enough but I would suggest that single
> quotes are not, i.e. 'C-x o', as the single quotes could generate too
> many false positives.  Surrounding this by braces does work, {'C-x o'}
> as of course does {C-x o}.

Seems like a good reason for using the braces in the manual. I don't
know if it is a good enough reason, but that is for you to judge.

Finally, it seems unfortunate that you can't use @kbd in your Texinfo
source for the key sequences if you want to get the braces. I'm not
sure if there is a solution for this.