path: root/doc/output.but

\C{output} Halibut output formats

This chapter describes each of Halibut's current output formats. It
gives some general information about the format, and also describes
all the configuration directives which are specific to that format.

\H{output-text} Plain text

This output format generates the document as a single plain text
file, under the name \c{output.txt}.

The output file is currently assumed to be in the ISO 8859-1
character set. Any Unicode characters representable in this set will
be output verbatim; any other characters will not be output and
their fallback text (if any) will be used instead.

The precise formatting of the text file can be controlled by a
variety of configuration directives. They are listed in the
following subsections.

\S{output-text-dimensions} Indentation and line width

This section describes the configuration directives which control
the horizontal dimensions of the output text file: how much
paragraphs are indented by and how long the lines are.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-width\}\{}\e{width}\cw{\}}

\dd Sets the width of the main part of the document, in characters.
This width will be used for wrapping paragraphs and for centring
titles (if you have asked for titles to be centred - see
\k{output-text-headings}). This width does \e{not} include the left
indentation set by \cw{\\cfg\{text-indent\}}; if you specify an
indent of 8 and a width of 64, your maximum output line length will
be 72.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-indent\}\{}\e{indent}\cw{\}}

\dd Sets the left indentation for the document. If you set this to
zero, your document will look like an ordinary text file as someone
with a text editor might have written it; if you set it above zero,
the text file will have a margin down the left in the style of some
printed manuals, and you can then configure the section numbers to
appear in this margin (see \k{output-text-headings}).

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-indent-code\}\{}\e{indent}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies how many extra characters of indentation (on top of
the normal left indent) should be given to code paragraphs.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-list-indent\}\{}\e{indent}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies how many extra spaces should be used to indent the
bullet or number in a bulletted or numbered list. The actual body of
the list item will be indented by this much \e{plus} the value
configured by \cw{\\cfg\{text-listitem-indent\}}.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-listitem-indent\}\{}\e{indent}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies how many extra spaces should be used to indent the
body of a list item, over and above the number configured in
\cw{\\cfg\{text-list-indent\}}.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-indent-preamble\}\{}\e{boolean}\cw{\}}

\dd When this is set to \c{true}, the document preamble (i.e. any
paragraphs appearing before the first chapter heading) will be
indented to the level specified by \cw{\\cfg\{text-indent\}}. If
this setting is \c{false}, the document preamble will not be
indented at all from the left margin.

\S{output-text-headings} Configuring heading display

The directives in this section allow you to configure the appearance
of the title, chapter and section headings in your text file.

Several of the directives listed below specify the alignment of a
heading. These alignment options have three possible values:

\dt \c{left}

\dd Align the heading to the very left of the text file (column zero).

\dt \c{leftplus}

\dd Align the section title to the left of the main display region
(in other words, indented to the level specified by
\cw{\\cfg\{text-indent\}}). The section \e{number} is placed to the
left of that (so that it goes in the margin if there is room).

\dt \c{centre}

\dd Centre the heading.

Also, several of the directives below specify how a title should be
underlined. The parameter to one of these directives should be
either blank (\cw{\{\}}) or a single character. In the latter case,
that character will be used to underline the title. So you might
want to specify, for example, \cw{\\text-title-underline\{=\}} but
\cw{\\text-chapter-underline\{-\}}.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-title-align\}\{}\e{alignment}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies the alignment of the overall document title: \c{left},
\c{leftplus} or \c{centre}.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-title-underline\}\{}\e{underline-character}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies how the overall document title should be underlined.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-chapter-align\}\{}\e{alignment}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies the alignment of chapter and appendix headings.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-chapter-underline\}\{}\e{underline-character}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies how chapter and appendix headings should be underlined.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-chapter-numeric\}\{}\e{boolean}\cw{\}}

\dd If this is set to \c{true}, then chapter headings will not
contain the word \q{Chapter} (or whatever other word you have
defined in its place - see \k{input-sections} and \k{input-config});
they will just contain the chapter \e{number}, followed by the
chapter title. If you set this to \c{false}, chapter headings will
be prefixed by \q{Chapter} or equivalent.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-chapter-suffix\}\{}\e{text}\cw{\}}

\dd This specifies the suffix text to be appended to the chapter
number, before displaying the chapter title. For example, if you set
this to \q{\cw{:\_}}, then the chapter title might look something
like \q{Chapter 2: Doing Things}.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-section-align\}\{}\e{level}\cw{\}\{}\e{alignment}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies the alignment of section headings at a particular
level. The \e{level} parameter specifies which level of section
headings you want to affect: 0 means first-level headings (\c{\\H}),
1 means second-level headings (\c{\\S}), 2 means the level below
that (\c{\\S2}), and so on. The \e{alignment} parameter is treated
just like the other alignment directives listed above.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-section-underline\}\{}\e{level}\cw{\}\{}\e{underline-character}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies how to underline section headings at a particular level.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-section-numeric\}\{}\e{level}\cw{\}\{}\e{boolean}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies whether section headings at a particular level should
contain the word \q{Section} or equivalent (if \c{false}), or should
be numeric only (if \c{true}).

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-section-suffix\}\{}\e{level}\cw{\}\{}\e{text}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies the suffix text to be appended to section numbers at a
particular level, before displaying the section title.

\S{output-text-misc} Miscellaneous configuration options

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-versionid\}\{}\e{boolean}\cw{\}}

\dd If this is set to \c{true}, version ID paragraphs (defined using the
\c{\\versionid} command - see \k{input-blurb}) will be included at
the bottom of the text file. If it is set to \c{false}, they will be
omitted completely.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{text-bullet\}\{}\e{text}\cw{\}}

\dd This specifies the text which should be used as the bullet in
bulletted lists. It can be one character
(\cw{\\cfg\{text-bullet\}\{-\}}), or more than one
(\cw{\\cfg\{text-bullet\}\{(*)\}}).

\# FIXME: code indentation is configurable, therefore \quote
\# indentation probably ought to be as well.

\# FIXME: text-indent-* should be consistently named.

\S{output-text-defaults} Default settings

The default settings for Halibut's plain text output format are:

\c \cfg{text-width}{68}
\c \cfg{text-indent}{7}
\c \cfg{text-indent-code}{2}
\c \cfg{text-list-indent}{1}
\c \cfg{text-listitem-indent}{3}
\c \cfg{text-indent-preamble}{false}
\c
\c \cfg{text-title-align}{centre}
\c \cfg{text-title-underline}{=}
\c
\c \cfg{text-chapter-align}{left}
\c \cfg{text-chapter-underline}{-}
\c \cfg{text-chapter-numeric}{false}
\c \cfg{text-chapter-suffix}{: }
\c
\c \cfg{text-section-align}{0}{leftplus}
\c \cfg{text-section-underline}{0}{}
\c \cfg{text-section-numeric}{0}{true}
\c \cfg{text-section-suffix}{0}{ }
\c
\c \cfg{text-section-align}{1}{leftplus}
\c \cfg{text-section-underline}{1}{}
\c \cfg{text-section-numeric}{1}{true}
\c \cfg{text-section-suffix}{1}{ }
\c
\c ... and so on for all section levels below this ...
\e iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

\H{output-html} HTML

This output format generates an HTML version of the document. By
default, this will be in multiple files, starting with
\c{Contents.html} and splitting the document into files by chapter
and/or subsection. You can configure precisely how the text is split
between HTML files using the configuration commands described in
this section. In particular, you can configure Halibut to output one
single HTML file instead of multiple ones, in which case it will be
called \c{Manual.html} (but you can rename it easily enough).

Strictly speaking, the output format is XHTML 1.0 Transitional,
which is why all of the configuration directives start with the word
\c{xhtml} rather than \c{html}.

\S{output-html-split} Controlling the splitting into HTML files

By default, the HTML output from Halibut is split into multiple
files. Each file typically contains a single chapter or section and
everything below it, unless subsections of that chapter are
themselves split off into further files.

Most files also contain a contents section, giving hyperlinks to the
sections in the file and/or the sections below it.

The configuration directives listed below allow you to configure the
splitting into files, and the details of the contents sections.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-leaf-level\}\{}\e{depth}\cw{\}}

\dd This setting indicates the depth of section which should be
given a \q{leaf} file (a file with no sub-files). So if you set it
to 1, for example, then every chapter will be given its own HTML
file, plus a top-level contents file. If you set this to 2, then
each chapter \e{and} each \c{\\H} section will have a file, and the
chapter files will mostly just contain links to their sub-files.

\lcont{

If you set this option to zero, then the whole document will appear
in a single file. If you do this, Halibut will call that file
\c{Manual.html} instead of \c{Contents.html}.

}

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-contents-depth-}\e{level}\cw{\}\{}\e{depth}\cw{\}}

\dd This directive allows you to specify how deep the contents
section in a particular file should go.

\lcont{

The \e{level} parameter indicates which level of contents section
you are dealing with. 0 denotes the main contents section in the
topmost file \c{Contents.html}; 1 denotes a contents section in a
chapter file; 2 is a contents section in a file containing a \c{\\H}
heading, and so on. Currently you can't go below level 5 (which
corresponds to a \c{\\S3} heading).

The \e{depth} parameter indicates the maximum depth of heading which
will be shown in this contents section. Again, 1 denotes a chapter,
2 is a \c{\\H} heading, 3 is a \c{\\S} heading, and so on.

So, for example: \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-contents-depth-1\}\{3\}} instructs
Halibut to put contents links in chapter files for all sections down
to \c{\\S} level, but not to go into any more detail than that.

}

\# FIXME: this is utterly ghastly. For a start, it should include
\# the level as a separate argument, like the text section config
\# directives. Secondly, it shouldn't be limited in depth!

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-leaf-contains-contents\}\{}\e{boolean}\cw{\}}

\dd If you set this to \c{true}, then each leaf file will contain
its own contents section which summarises the text within it.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-leaf-smallest-contents\}\{}\e{number}\cw{\}}

\dd Contents sections in leaf files are not output at all if they
contain very few entries (on the assumption that it just isn't worth
bothering). This directive configures the minimum number of entries
required in a leaf contents section to make Halibut bother
generating it at all.

\S{output-html-html} Including pieces of your own HTML

The directives in this section allow you to supply pieces of
verbatim HTML code, which will be included in various parts of the
output files.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-head-end\}\{}\e{HTML text}\cw{\}}

\dd The text you provide in this directive is placed at the end of
the \cw{<HEAD>} section of each output HTML file. So this is a good
place to put, for example, a link to a CSS stylesheet.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-body-tag\}\{}\e{HTML text}\cw{\}}

\dd The text you provide in this directive is used in place of the
\cw{<BODY>} tag in each output file. So if you wanted to define a
background colour, for example, you could write
\cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-body-tag\}\{<body bg="#123456">\}}.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-body-start\}\{}\e{HTML text}\cw{\}}

\dd The text you provide in this directive is placed at the
beginning of the \cw{<BODY>} section of each output HTML file. So if
you intend your HTML files to be part of a web site with a standard
house style, and the style needs a header at the top of every page,
this is where you can add that header.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-body-end\}\{}\e{HTML text}\cw{\}}

\dd The text you provide in this directive is placed at the
end of the \cw{<BODY>} section of each output HTML file. So if
you intend your HTML files to be part of a web site with a standard
house style, and the style needs a footer at the bottom of every page,
this is where you can add that footer.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-address-start\}\{}\e{HTML text}\cw{\}}

\dd The text you provide in this directive is placed at the
beginning of the \cw{<ADDRESS>} section at the bottom of each output
HTML file. This might be a good place to put authors' contact
details, for example.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-address-end\}\{}\e{HTML text}\cw{\}}

\dd The text you provide in this directive is placed at the
end of the \cw{<ADDRESS>} section at the bottom of each output
HTML file, after the version IDs (if present).

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-navigation-attributes\}\{}\e{HTML attributes}\cw{\}}

\dd The text you provide in this directive is included inside the
\cw{<P>} tag containing the navigation links at the top of each page
(\q{Previous} / \q{Contents} / \q{Next}). So if you wanted the
navigation links to have a particular CSS style, you could write
\cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-navigation-attributes\}\{class="foo"\}}, and the
navigation-links paragraph would then begin with the tag \cw{<p
class="foo">}.

\S{output-html-headings} Configuring heading display

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-chapter-numeric\}\{}\e{boolean}\cw{\}}

\dd If this is set to \c{true}, then chapter headings will not
contain the word \q{Chapter} (or whatever other word you have
defined in its place - see \k{input-sections} and \k{input-config});
they will just contain the chapter \e{number}, followed by the
chapter title. If you set this to \c{false}, chapter headings will
be prefixed by \q{Chapter} or equivalent.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-chapter-suffix\}\{}\e{text}\cw{\}}

\dd This specifies the suffix text to be appended to the chapter
number, before displaying the chapter title. For example, if you set
this to \q{\cw{:\_}}, then the chapter title might look something
like \q{Chapter 2: Doing Things}.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-section-numeric\}\{}\e{boolean}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies whether section headings at a particular level should
contain the word \q{Section} or equivalent (if \c{false}), or should
be numeric only (if \c{true}). The \e{level} parameter specifies
which level of section headings you want to affect: 0 means
first-level headings (\c{\\H}), 1 means second-level headings
(\c{\\S}), 2 means the level below that (\c{\\S2}), and so on.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-section-suffix\}\{}\e{text}\cw{\}}

\dd Specifies the suffix text to be appended to section numbers at a
particular level, before displaying the section title.

\S{output-html-misc} Miscellaneous options

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-versionid\}\{}\e{boolean}\cw{\}}

\dd If this is set to \c{true}, version ID paragraphs (defined using
the \c{\\versionid} command - see \k{input-blurb}) will be included
visibly in the \cw{<ADDRESS>} section at the bottom of each HTML
file. If it is set to \c{false}, they will be omitted completely.

\# FIXME: surely it would be better to include them in HTML
\# comments? The only question is whether they should be _visible_.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-suppress-address\}\{}\e{boolean}\cw{\}}

\dd If this is set to \c{true}, the \cw{<ADDRESS>} section at the
bottom of each HTML file will be omitted completely. (This will
therefore also cause version IDs not to be included.)

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-author\}\{}\e{text}\cw{\}}

\dd The text supplied here goes in a \cw{<META name="author">} tag
in the output HTML files, so that browsers which support this can
automatically identify the author of the document.

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{xhtml-description\}\{}\e{text}\cw{\}}

\dd The text supplied here goes in a \cw{<META name="description">}
tag in the output HTML files, so that browsers which support this
can easily pick out a brief description of the document.

\S{output-html-defaults} Default settings

The default settings for Halibut's HTML output format are:

\c \cfg{xhtml-leaf-level}{2}
\c \cfg{xhtml-leaf-contains-contents}{false}
\c \cfg{xhtml-leaf-smallest-contents}{4}
\c \cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-0}{2}
\c \cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-1}{3}
\c \cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-2}{4}
\c \cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-3}{5}
\c \cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-4}{6}
\c \cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-5}{7}
\c
\c \cfg{xhtml-head-end}{}
\c \cfg{xhtml-body-tag}{<body>}
\c \cfg{xhtml-body-start}{}
\c \cfg{xhtml-body-end}{}
\c \cfg{xhtml-address-start}{}
\c \cfg{xhtml-address-end}{}
\c \cfg{xhtml-navigation-attributes}{}
\c
\c \cfg{xhtml-versionid}{true}
\c \cfg{xhtml-suppress-address}{false}
\c \cfg{xhtml-author}{}
\c \cfg{xhtml-description}{}
\c
\c \cfg{xhtml-chapter-numeric}{false}
\c \cfg{xhtml-chapter-suffix}{: }
\c
\c \cfg{xhtml-section-numeric}{0}{true}
\c \cfg{xhtml-section-suffix}{0}{ }
\c
\c \cfg{xhtml-section-numeric}{1}{true}
\c \cfg{xhtml-section-suffix}{1}{ }
\c
\c ... and so on for all section levels below this ...
\e iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

\H{output-whlp} Windows Help

This output format generates data that can be used by the Windows
Help program \cw{WINHELP.EXE}. There are two actual files generated,
called \c{output.hlp} and \c{output.cnt}. (You can rename them both
with no problems; they don't depend on keeping those filenames. You
just have to make sure that the two names are related in this way,
so that \c{.hlp} on the end of one name is replaced by \c{.cnt} on
the end of the other.)

The Windows Help output format is currently not configurable at all;
all formatting decisions are fixed. However, there is one
configuration directive you can use, which is not so much
\e{configuration} as extra functionality:

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{winhelp-topic\}\{}\e{topic-name}\cw{\}}

\dd This directive defines a Windows Help topic name in the current
section. Topic names can be used by the program invoking
\cw{WINHELP.EXE} to jump straight to a particular section. So you
can use this for context-sensitive help.

\lcont{

For example, if you used this directive in a particular section:

\c \cfg{winhelp-topic}{savingfiles}

then a Windows application could invoke Windows Help to jump to that
particular section in the help file like this:

\c WinHelp(hwnd, "mydoc.hlp", HELP_COMMAND,
\c         (DWORD)"JI(`',`savingfiles')");

You can use this configuration directive many times, in many
different subsections of your document, in order to define a lot of
different help contexts which you can use in this way.

}

\H{output-man} Unix \cw{man} pages

This output format generates a Unix \cw{man} page. That is to say,
it generates \c{nroff} input designed to work with the \c{-mandoc}
macro package.

The available configuration options for this format are as follows:

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{man-identity\}\{}\e{text}\cw{\}\{}\e{text...}\cw{\}}

\dd This directive is used to generate the initial \c{.TH} directive
that appears at the top of a \cw{man} page. It expects to be
followed by some number of brace pairs containing text, which will
be used in the headers and footers of the formatted output.

\lcont{

A traditional order for the arguments appears to be:

\n The name of the program.

\n The (numeric) manual section.

\n The date that the \cw{man} page was written.

\n The name of any containing suite of which the program is a part.

\n The name of the author of the \cw{man} page.

For example, a typical \cw{man} page might contain

\c \cfg{man-identity}{make-foo}{1}{June 2003}{foo-utils}{Fred Bloggs}

}

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{man-headnumbers\}\{}\e{boolean}\cw{\}}

\dd If this is set to \c{true}, then section headings in the
\cw{man} page will have their section numbers displayed as usual. If
set to \c{false}, the section numbers will be omitted. (\cw{man}
pages traditionally have section names such as \q{SYNOPSIS},
\q{OPTIONS} and \q{BUGS}, and do not typically number them, so
\c{false} is the setting which conforms most closely to normal
\cw{man} style.)

\dt \cw{\\cfg\{man-mindepth\}\{}\e{depth}\cw{\}}

\dd If this is set to a number greater than 0, then section headings
\e{higher} than the given depth will not be displayed. If it is set
to zero, all section headings will be displayed as normal.

\lcont{

The point of this is so that you can use the same Halibut input file
to generate a quick-reference \cw{man} page for a program, \e{and} to
include that \cw{man} page as an appendix in your program's full manual.
If you are to include the \cw{man} page as an appendix, then the internal
headings within the page will probably need to be at \c{\\H} or
\c{\\S} level; therefore, when you format that input file on its own
to create the \cw{man} page itself, you will need to have defined a
\c{\\C} and possibly a \c{\\H} heading beforehand, which you don't
want to see displayed.

Here's an example. You might have a file \c{appendix.but}, which
simply says

\c \A{manpages} \cw{man} pages for the Foo tool suite
\c
\c \cfg{man-mindepth}{2}

Then you have a file \c{make-foo.but}, and probably others like it
as well, each of which looks something like this:

\c \cfg{man-identity}{make-foo}{1}{June 2003}{foo-utils}{Fred Bloggs}
\c
\c \H{man-foo} \cw{man} page for \c{make-foo}
\c 
\c \S{man-foo-name} NAME
\c
\c \c{make-foo} - create Foo files for the Foo tool suite
\c
\c \S{man-foo-synopsis} SYNOPSIS
\c
\c ... and so on ...
\e iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

So when you're generating your main manual, you can include
\c{appendix.but} followed by \c{make-foo.but} and any other \cw{man}
pages you have, and your \cw{man} pages will be formatted neatly as
part of an appendix. Then, in a separate run of Halibut, you can
just do

\c halibut appendix.but make-foo.but

and this will generate a \cw{man} page \c{output.1}, in which the
headings \q{\cw{man} pages for the Foo tool suite} and \q{\cw{man}
page for \c{make-foo}} will not be displayed because of the
\c{man-mindepth} directive. So the first visible heading in the
output \cw{man} page will be \q{NAME}, exactly as a user would
expect.

}

The default settings for the \cw{man} page output format are:

\c \cfg{man-identity}{}
\c \cfg{man-headnumbers}{false}
\c \cfg{man-mindepth}{0}