Ada 95 HTML-Hypertext Reference Manual

Ada 95 HTML-Hypertext Reference Manual

[Magnus Kempe]

		Ada 95 HTML-Hypertext Reference Manual:
			Hyper-RM95 (v1.0)


Finally!

After a couple of week-ends and several dark nights spent working on
weird scripts at home, the transmogrification of the Ada RM 95
(International Standard, final version 6.0) into hypertext succeeded
today.  There are some major improvements over the transmogrification
of version 5.0, which went through the scrutiny of a group of
beta-testers a few months ago.  After version 6.0 came out, it was
difficult to find the time to make the necessary adaptations, or the
useful changes and improvements that had been suggested by beta-testers
(the days, and nights, and week-ends, were just packed, Calvin would
say).  And then it was time to ski :-)

So here comes the tested, rugged, improved version.

Some of the improvements in Hyper-RM95 are:
- better navigating structure
- hierarchy of short tables of contents
- icons to represent navigational links
- browsing as if linearly reading the paper version
- hypertext annotations verified with htmlchek

Hyper-RM95 is available to all through the WWW.  It is of course
located in the Home of the Brave Ada Programmers (HBAP).  The URL
of HBAP is
	http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/

The hypertext structure and annotations are Copyright (C) 1994, 1995
by Magnus Kempe.  Follow the "Copyright" link of Hyper-RM95 for more
information.

This version of Hyper-RM95 is known to work with at least Netscape
(recommended), Lynx, and Mosaic.  (Please report the presence or
absence of problems with other browsers; thanks.)

-----------
FTP Package

A packaged version of Hyper-RM95 can also be downloaded by anonymous
FTP. This FTP package is provided for those who have slow or expensive
Internet connections, for those who don't yet have direct "outside-their-
company" Internet access, and for those who are behind firewalls for
security reasons, but who can still FTP (e.g. via mail-servers). If you
find you need to FTP the package, please note that it takes a lot of
disk space, that the search capability requires the presence of a local
HTTP server, and that the online version will certainly have upgrades
and possibly corrections in the future.

In addition to the copyright statement in the package, the following
conditions apply to copying and distributing copies of the Hyper-RM95
package through FTP/WWW or equivalent means:

  Copies of the package are allowed but not recommended on other
  anonymous FTP sites.  Copies are NOT allowed on government-subsidized
  FTP/WWW sites which require registration and accounts.  This package
  is intended exclusively for local installation; individual files
  extracted from the package may NOT be exported outside of a site
  (e.g. company or university) with other FTP/WWW servers than the
  Home of the Brave Ada Programmers (HBAP).

The URL of the directory from which to FTP the package is
	http://lglftp.epfl.ch/pub/Ada/HTML

There you will find two compressed files suitable for _binary_ downloading
(same contents, but differents approaches to "tar and feather"):
	rm95html-1.0.tar.Z    (908KB)
	rm95html-1.0.tar.zip  (555KB)

and a version specially made to comply with the ADA, 8+3 filenames and
modified links to work under the crippled OS, MS-DOS:
	rm95hdos.zip  (956KB)
[Note: since I don't work with DOS, I haven't tested this version.
 Caveat downloador.]

Uncompressed, the package occupies more than 3MB, with more than 500 files.
Once you've extracted the files, read the "INSTALL" file for installation
instructions.

Note:  The search capability of Hyper-RM95 works with "perl".  I don't
know if it can easily be made to work under MacOS and DOS.

--------
Comments

In general, I am interested in comments on form (readability)
and usability (do you get lost, can you find what you want, etc.),
as well as in reports of unreadable sections or erroneous links.  All
suggestions for improvements (on the hypertext annotations, not on the
contents) are welcome.  Email to Magnus.Kempe@di.epfl.ch

----------------------
Known Bugs/Limitations

- some icons are illegible on a monochrome screen
    (temporary workaround: get a color screen :-)

- "Search" link does not work with MacMosaic 1.0.3 because it lacks forms
    (workaround: use another, better browser with support for forms)

- the clauses and subclauses in the TOCs are not fully numbered
    (numbering of lists is done by your WWW browser; this approach loses
     the "parent" numbering, leading to e.g. "1. Names" instead of
     "4.1. Names", but the context is normally quite sufficient to
     know what the enclosing section/clause is)

- annexes K and P, as well as some index sections, take too long to load
    (workaround: use a better browser; for instance, Netscape displays
     the page as soon as it has enough information, long before it has
     finished downloading the full page)

-- 
Magnus Kempe		"I know not what course others may take, but as for me,
Magnus.Kempe@di.epfl.ch  Give me Liberty... or give me Death!" -- Patrick Henry

Re: Ada 95 HTML-Hypertext Reference Manual

[David Weller]

In article <1995Mar12.194309@di.epfl.ch>,
Magnus Kempe <Magnus.Kempe@di.epfl.ch> wrote:
>
>This version of Hyper-RM95 is known to work with at least Netscape
>(recommended), Lynx, and Mosaic.  (Please report the presence or
>absence of problems with other browsers; thanks.)
>

IBM's WebExplorer for OS/2 handles the RM with no problems.  In fact,
it's quite fast.  (I just finished running a quick test on it)

-- 
      Frustrated with C, C++, Pascal, Fortran?  Ada95 _might_ be for you!
	  For all sorts of interesting Ada95 tidbits, run the command:
"finger dweller@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.)
	

Re: Ada 95 HTML-Hypertext Reference Manual

[Magnus Kempe]

Following up to myself :-)
I wrote:
: The URL of the directory from which to FTP the package [Hyper-RM95] is
: 	http://lglftp.epfl.ch/pub/Ada/HTML
        ^^^^

And of course I should have written
	ftp://lglftp.epfl.ch/pub/Ada/HTML
	^^^
-- 
Magnus Kempe		"I know not what course others may take, but as for me,
Magnus.Kempe@di.epfl.ch  Give me Liberty... or give me Death!" -- Patrick Henry