X-Git-Url: https://jxself.org/git/?p=ibg.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=README.md;h=eb05a28441f8bb27bab0be603111494d2d4f604e;hp=6c0485f6718730ec3b88c6b23cd14f7d9ad934bf;hb=dc7fec99d92b670126e1e73e05df8f60706edc2d;hpb=32e6323676b92eb33f4d8300e790003303be3cc1 diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 6c0485f..eb05a28 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -1,17 +1,22 @@ -Inform Beginner's Guide, 4th Edition -==================================== +Inform Beginner's Guide +======================= Introduction ------------ -This repository contains the sources for the 4th edition of the +This repository contains the sources for the [Inform Beginner's Guide](http://www.firthworks.com/roger/IBG.html), -henceforth known as the IBG. The new edition will be in a new source -format that's more contributor-friendly (see below). It's a -work-in-progress; see the [issue tracker](https://github.com/i6/ibg/issues) -for how it's going. - -The rationale for this 4th edition is: +henceforth known as the IBG. This version is in a new source format that's +more version-control and contributor-friendly: +[Sphinx](http://sphinx-doc.org), a documentation build tool written in +[Python](http://python.org). With Sphinx, the source files are in a very +readable format called +[reStructuredText](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReStructuredText). + +This version of the IBG is a work-in-progress; see the +[issue tracker](https://github.com/i6/ibg/issues) for how it's going. +Initially it will be a straight conversion of the 3rd edition. After that, +the 4th edition will be prepared. The rationale for a 4th edition is: * There have been quite a few updates to Inform and its support libraries in the time since 2004, when the 3rd edition was published. @@ -25,17 +30,33 @@ The rationale for this 4th edition is: Building from source -------------------- -The new source format is [Sphinx](http://sphinx-doc.org), a documentation -build tool written in [Python](http://python.org), which you will need to -install if you want to build the document. You can find the complete -installation instructions -[here](http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/stable/install.html). +As well as these document sources, you will need: + +* Sphinx. You can find the complete installation instructions + [here](http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/stable/install.html). + +* Sphinx makes use of [Blockdiag](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/blockdiag) + for some of the diagrams; you'll need that too. + +If you have `pip`, this command will be all you need: -After you have Sphinx installed, you can build the HTML version of the + pip install sphinx blockdiag + +After you have everything installed, you can build the HTML version of the guide from a command prompt, like this: make html +For building the PDF version, you need a reasonably recent installation of +TeX Live. Release 2014 will do. You will also need the Emerald font +package from https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/emerald/. This cannot +be installed with `tlmgr`, nor does it seem to be packaged by the usual +Linux or BSD distributions. Scripts for installing and uninstalling +Emerald are provided in the `tools` directory. When you're ready, type +this: + + make latexpdf + Other formats are available; just type `make` for more details. Conversion strategy @@ -58,7 +79,7 @@ So, it's back to my original plan: use the PDF file. Here's the first (major) part of the work: * Dump the text out of the PDF file -* Convert all the text to Sphinx format +* Convert all the 3rd edition text to Sphinx format * Get the online version to look good After that comes the 4th edition changes, hopefully in collaboration with