[Oberon] Documentation format

[Douglas G. Danforth]

"Yuri M. Skripkah" wrote:
...
> IMHO for attracting new users ( if this goal is at all )
> is more better publish all documentation in one tree in Oberon site
> as html (most of potentially users have web-browser :)),than extend
> support for various mouses.
> Now part of documentation is on paper in books, part hidden in articles, part
> in ps files. It is in dependence with copyright, of course, but may be
> one source is possible?

This is an interesting suggestion and raises many difficulties.
General user 
  convenience: HTLM document
  Downside: Inefficient storage size, editing of complex documents
            not easy
Oberon user
  Convenience: Text document
  Downside: small audience, blocks others from seeing it
BlackBox user
  Convenience: .odc document
  Downside: small audience, etc.

The BlackBox environment supports the concept of "Converter" that
translates .odc documents into .txt, .html, and others.

The physics e-print server http://xxx.lanl.gov/ provides access
to a document in several formats: .ps, .pdf, .dvi

It is unlikely that a single Oberon documentation format will 
satisfy everyone.  However, support internally in one format
and then (automatic) conversion to a number of different formats
is a possibility (the e-print server runs without human intervention).

-Doug