Subject: [Tools-discuss] mangled ToC in RFC 8784

From: Paul Wouters <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2020 14:21:06 -0400 (EDT)

Hi,

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8784

This RFC seems to have a mangled ToC that cannot be clicked at.

Is that something that can be fixed?

Paul

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2020 19:48:04 +0100

Hi Paul,

> Is that something that can be fixed?

Probably yes.  The biggest stumbling block is that with the current
un-paginated RFC text format, there is nothing or not much to distinguish
ToC lines from start-of-section lines later in the document, which is
an issue for the regex-based (~ stateless) htmlization script.

The line of spaced dots between section name and page number in earlier
ToCs were used to identify ToC entries.

I think I can figure out a way to deal with this, but it will require some
coding, testing, and a new release of my htmlization lib.

Best regards,

	Henrik

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From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2020 15:59:55 -0400

> coding, testing, and a new release of my htmlization lib.

I gotta ask if it's worth fixing?

Maybe we need a new output option for xml2rfc that produces this text-like
output that we seem to prefer.  Or maybe it's just a CSS variation?

(For along time, I've prefered the tools htmlized pages: they were the best
for pulling offline onto a tablet for reading.  The apps that I used for
doing that have rotted, and COVID has made that less interesting)

The RFC editor copy of HTML looks great, and it links to that, and the ToC
works there.

--
]               Never tell me the odds!                 | ipv6 mesh networks [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works        |    IoT architect   [
]     [email-masked]  http://www.sandelman.ca/        |   ruby on rails    [

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From: Paul Wouters <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2020 16:18:25 -0400 (EDT)

> I gotta ask if it's worth fixing?

Yes it is. What's the point of a ToC if I can't use it to go to a
specific section.

> (For along time, I've prefered the tools htmlized pages: they were the best

I still prefer the tools version and I think they are still the best.

Paul

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From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2020 19:50:51 -0400

> Yes it is. What's the point of a ToC if I can't use it to go to a

I agree that the TOC is useless in this form.
I'm asking what would make the HTML version more useable to you?
I also find it different and weird, but I'm starting to accept it.

The best part of the tools htmlized version is that it, by default, seems to
fill most of my screen (fit-width), while the various other versions I have
to adjust things, and sometimes it just never looks right.
The DT copy of the htmlization suffers from this in particular.

The HTML output is naturally much more reactive, but I still find that there
is too much wasted white space.

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>   . o O ( IPv6 IøT consulting )
           Sandelman Software Works Inc, Ottawa and Worldwide

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From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2020 17:16:04 -0700

> On Oct 28, 2020, at 4:50 PM, Michael Richardson <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Signed PGP part
> 

I agree with what Michael said.

Bob

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From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2020 01:36:14 +0100

> is too much wasted white space.

There are three modes:

(1) narrow browser window: pull-down TOC; quite usable.

(2) wide browser window:  The TOC takes most(*) of the right half.
This is great if you are TOC-clicking, not so great if you are trying to get an overview what is on the page [sic].

(3) very wide browser window: the text is a sausage in the middle, the TOC is on the right, most of the space is wasted.  It is probably right for readability in most cases that the line length is limited to about 110 characters, but, again, that doesn’t help if you want to maximize the overview.

I think there needs to be a way to click away the TOC into pull-down mode even with wide windows, and to click away the wide white margins when one prefers to use the whole window width.

I haven’t tried to understand yet when there is a metadata.min.js and when there isn’t; it looks like there isn’t one in https://www.ietf.org/archive/id or https://www.ietf.org/id .

Grüße, Carsten

(*) If there is more TOC than space, the TOC starts to scroll, but doesn’t use the full window height.  Slightly infuriating, in particular since I can’t control the font size of the TOC independently to show more.