dolfin team mailing list archive

[Johan Jansson <johanjan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Aug 20, 2005 at 05:35:37AM -0500, Anders Logg wrote:
> I met with Johan Hoffman in Stockholm yesterday and we decided it's
> about time we put a manual together for DOLFIN. (And the code is now
> mature enough that it will actually be possible to do it.) I will be
> traveling this and the next week, but we could start thinking about
> what we want to put into the manual.

Yes, I also think it's a good idea. I'm willing to work on it in a few
weeks.

> 
> First some random thoughts:
> 
> 1. There is already a LaTeX-template in the source tree that I think
> we should use.
> 
> 2. Manual (PDF) is automatically updated on the web page from CVS once
> a day.
> 
> 3. We should probably also generate HTML from the PDF or directly from
> tex. Is latex2html the right tool for this or are there any other
> tools to consider?

As far as I know, latex2html is the only practical Latex to HTML
tool. It's not always beautiful, but it produces functional output in
my experience. I don't know about PDF to HTML tools, that would be
nice if it worked.

I think we should put forward the PDF manual as the primary format,
then if we can generate other formats, that's a bonus.

> 
> 4. Should we try to separate material between the FFC and DOLFIN
> manuals or should they overlap? We could put each section in a
> separate tex-file and use \input{} and let some sections be identical.

I think we should keep them separate and copy relevant sections as you
say. FFC will likely grow in complexity (added operators, output
formats, library API etc.), and then it's going to require a manual on
its own anyway. It's also nice to keep the Fenics component separate
as we have done so far, which enforces good interfaces.

The table of contents looks fine to me.

  Johan