2.  Goals

The roffToWeb toolkit was designed to create high quality HTML and PostScript documents from same set of source files. In this context, high quality means

• that the PostScript version is well formatted and
• that the HTML version is readble, navigatable, and searchable [Friendly]

Because of the nature of HTML and PostScript, the resulting documents will not be identical. For example,

• HTML has no page layout facilities, for example break page, and
• applet/hypertext links can not work from a piece of paper. (However, both will be indicated in the PostScript version: an applet with `` '' and a hypertext link with ``°''.)

Therefore, the designers main objective was to utilize the best feauture of each type while making the resulting documents as similar as possible:

Other goals for this toolkit were that:

• The user would not needed to know HTML, but would know how to create a troff document.
• A user would be able to define his/her own macro packages.
• It must be easy to use.
• It must be easy to setup for new projects.
• It must be extensible for new preprocessors.
• Each web page that were created would have the same look and feel, and that that look and feel could be customized.
• The toolkit would add search capabilities to the web site automatically.
• Everything that belongs to the HTML version of the documents would be stored in a directory structure that would be created automatically. Therefore, the HTML files would be able to be moved into a local main web page directory without any difficulty. We will assume it is called public_html.
• The technology used would not be restricted in application to the troff tools; rather, it would be adaptable to all text formatters e.g, LaTeX [LaTex].

Last modified: 24/November/98 (09:40)