From: swbaker@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Texas Bob or Eddie Froman depending on the moon)
Subject: Re: What about an automatic HHGKG editor
Summary: That's a pretty tall order, pard'ner! <G>
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester MI.
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 12:19:44 GMT

In article <andreasa.58@sofus.dhhalden.no> andreasa@sofus.dhhalden.no (ANDREAS ARFF) writes:

>Couldn't you consider an automatic editor that would insert all the
>format flags for a text.

>I've been thinking of making one myself, but I know far too little about
>turbo-vision (I suppose that you have used TV).

If you mean me (Steve) in particular, YES I use TV 6.0 for The Guide!

>Wouldn't it be a nice feature in later versions of HHGKG.

It sure would be nice, but let's consider all that would be involved:

First of all, by "all the format flags" I assume you mean those delimiters
like %t, %a, %x and so on.

For any automated process to operate, it must have a set of rules with which
to perform its function.  In this case, the rules to insert all the format
flags would either have to --

     1) force the text to be of a particular format (ie, the first line must
          be the title, the second line must be the author, etc).  If this
          approach was taken, the article authors would be just as limited
          in their formats as if they had actually inserted the %t stuff
          themselves.  If a system used this approach to read in a plain-
          old ASCII file, how else could the system know what the title is,
          what the cross-references and indices are, who the author(s) is/are?

     2) use some OTHER type of tokens to tell the system where the particular
          fields are.  By this method, the article authors would insert some
          other series of tokens/symbols which the program could understand as
          a field delimiter.  For example, the title might be denoted with a
          ~T~ symbol or something.  This method, however, is both redundant
          and unnecessary, since we already have tokens to handle the job.

In summary, for a system to be able to handle ANY generic ASCII file and
figure out which info is the title, summary, cross-references, author(s),
glossary items, etc. you'd have to impose some type of format or rules upon
the incoming ASCII file... which defeats the purpose of having an automated
system in the first place!

<if there ARE any techojock progroheads out there who CAN come up with a
 way to parse any generic ASCII file into the "official" writing style guide,
 then PLEASE share some insight... for the reasons hinted at above, the
 task would be monumental, for the minute you define a rule or condition,
 then your system cannot handle ANY generic ASCII article, which is what
 Arff seems to be asking about...>

>Then I might contribute with an article on Norway, the land of fjords,
>that gave a design price to the creator of Norway, in gold, and made fjords
>very popular in other parts of the world.

If you DO find the current token/symbol system too confusing to use, then just
send the ascii file to me (swbaker@vela.acs.oakland.edu) and I'll do all that
stuff for you (see how much we want new articles around here?!?) -- PS, it's
REALLY not very difficult to work with...

>A text editor is a feature I really would like to see.

Again, I assume you mean for The Guide! for IBM's?  I AM planning on adding
a full-featured text editor (word wrap, clipboard w/cut-n-paste, etc) to
TG!'s UPDATE.EXE utility, but that won't be until after 1.00 is done...

>Arff

Steve
--
  "Cast your worthless sham of a vote for the hillbilly on th' stage
   He's a country boy who knows whudee wants, and his hairstyle's off th' page
   He gave me a crooked look one day, and left me in a paranoid rage
   Purple candidate create the weight-divided trays..."

                           -- "All-Star Benefit Rally for the Election of
                               Minister of Green Glass"  -- WLSD-FM Radio

swbaker@vela.acs.oakland.edu
Newsgroups: alt.galactic-guide