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Chapter 4: Halibut output formats

This chapter describes each of Halibut's current output formats. It gives some general information about the format, and also describes all the configuration directives which are specific to that format.

4.1 Plain text

This output format generates the document as a single plain text file.

The output file is currently assumed to be in the ISO 8859-1 character set. Any Unicode characters representable in this set will be output verbatim; any other characters will not be output and their fallback text (if any) will be used instead.

The precise formatting of the text file can be controlled by a variety of configuration directives. They are listed in the following subsections.

4.1.1 Output file name

\cfg{text-filename}{filename}
Sets the output file name in which to store the text file. This directive is implicitly generated if you provide a file name parameter after the command-line option --text (see section 2.1).

4.1.2 Indentation and line width

This section describes the configuration directives which control the horizontal dimensions of the output text file: how much paragraphs are indented by and how long the lines are.

\cfg{text-width}{width}
Sets the width of the main part of the document, in characters. This width will be used for wrapping paragraphs and for centring titles (if you have asked for titles to be centred - see section 4.1.3). This width does not include the left indentation set by \cfg{text-indent}; if you specify an indent of 8 and a width of 64, your maximum output line length will be 72.
\cfg{text-indent}{indent}
Sets the left indentation for the document. If you set this to zero, your document will look like an ordinary text file as someone with a text editor might have written it; if you set it above zero, the text file will have a margin down the left in the style of some printed manuals, and you can then configure the section numbers to appear in this margin (see section 4.1.3).
\cfg{text-indent-code}{indent}
Specifies how many extra characters of indentation (on top of the normal left indent) should be given to code paragraphs.
\cfg{text-list-indent}{indent}
Specifies how many extra spaces should be used to indent the bullet or number in a bulletted or numbered list. The actual body of the list item will be indented by this much plus the value configured by \cfg{text-listitem-indent}.
\cfg{text-listitem-indent}{indent}
Specifies how many extra spaces should be used to indent the body of a list item, over and above the number configured in \cfg{text-list-indent}.
\cfg{text-indent-preamble}{boolean}
When this is set to true, the document preamble (i.e. any paragraphs appearing before the first chapter heading) will be indented to the level specified by \cfg{text-indent}. If this setting is false, the document preamble will not be indented at all from the left margin.

4.1.3 Configuring heading display

The directives in this section allow you to configure the appearance of the title, chapter and section headings in your text file.

Several of the directives listed below specify the alignment of a heading. These alignment options have three possible values:

left
Align the heading to the very left of the text file (column zero).
leftplus
Align the section title to the left of the main display region (in other words, indented to the level specified by \cfg{text-indent}). The section number is placed to the left of that (so that it goes in the margin if there is room).
centre
Centre the heading.

Also, several of the directives below specify how a title should be underlined. The parameter to one of these directives should be either blank ({}) or a single character. In the latter case, that character will be used to underline the title. So you might want to specify, for example, \text-title-underline{=} but \text-chapter-underline{-}.

\cfg{text-title-align}{alignment}
Specifies the alignment of the overall document title: left, leftplus or centre.
\cfg{text-title-underline}{underline-character}
Specifies how the overall document title should be underlined.
\cfg{text-chapter-align}{alignment}
Specifies the alignment of chapter and appendix headings.
\cfg{text-chapter-underline}{underline-character}
Specifies how chapter and appendix headings should be underlined.
\cfg{text-chapter-numeric}{boolean}
If this is set to true, then chapter headings will not contain the word "Chapter" (or whatever other word you have defined in its place - see section 3.3.5 and section 3.6); they will just contain the chapter number, followed by the chapter title. If you set this to false, chapter headings will be prefixed by "Chapter" or equivalent.
\cfg{text-chapter-suffix}{text}
This specifies the suffix text to be appended to the chapter number, before displaying the chapter title. For example, if you set this to "", then the chapter title might look something like "Chapter 2: Doing Things".
\cfg{text-section-align}{level}{alignment}
Specifies the alignment of section headings at a particular level. The level parameter specifies which level of section headings you want to affect: 0 means first-level headings (\H), 1 means second-level headings (\S), 2 means the level below that (\S2), and so on. The alignment parameter is treated just like the other alignment directives listed above.
\cfg{text-section-underline}{level}{underline-character}
Specifies how to underline section headings at a particular level.
\cfg{text-section-numeric}{level}{boolean}
Specifies whether section headings at a particular level should contain the word "Section" or equivalent (if false), or should be numeric only (if true).
\cfg{text-section-suffix}{level}{text}
Specifies the suffix text to be appended to section numbers at a particular level, before displaying the section title.

4.1.4 Miscellaneous configuration options

\cfg{text-versionid}{boolean}
If this is set to true, version ID paragraphs (defined using the \versionid command - see section 3.3.6) will be included at the bottom of the text file. If it is set to false, they will be omitted completely.
\cfg{text-bullet}{text}
This specifies the text which should be used as the bullet in bulletted lists. It can be one character (\cfg{text-bullet}{-}), or more than one (\cfg{text-bullet}{(*)}).

4.1.5 Default settings

The default settings for Halibut's plain text output format are:

\cfg{text-filename}{output.txt}

\cfg{text-width}{68}
\cfg{text-indent}{7}
\cfg{text-indent-code}{2}
\cfg{text-list-indent}{1}
\cfg{text-listitem-indent}{3}
\cfg{text-indent-preamble}{false}

\cfg{text-title-align}{centre}
\cfg{text-title-underline}{=}

\cfg{text-chapter-align}{left}
\cfg{text-chapter-underline}{-}
\cfg{text-chapter-numeric}{false}
\cfg{text-chapter-suffix}{: }

\cfg{text-section-align}{0}{leftplus}
\cfg{text-section-underline}{0}{}
\cfg{text-section-numeric}{0}{true}
\cfg{text-section-suffix}{0}{ }

\cfg{text-section-align}{1}{leftplus}
\cfg{text-section-underline}{1}{}
\cfg{text-section-numeric}{1}{true}
\cfg{text-section-suffix}{1}{ }

... and so on for all section levels below this ...

4.2 HTML

This output format generates an HTML version of the document. By default, this will be in multiple files, starting with Contents.html and splitting the document into files by chapter and/or subsection. You can configure precisely how the text is split between HTML files using the configuration commands described in this section. In particular, you can configure Halibut to output one single HTML file instead of multiple ones.

Strictly speaking, the output format is XHTML 1.0 Transitional, which is why all of the configuration directives start with the word xhtml rather than html.

4.2.1 Controlling the output file names

\cfg{xhtml-contents-filename}{filename}
Sets the output file name in which to store the top-level contents page. Since this is the first page a user ought to see when beginning to read the document, a good choice in many cases might be index.html (but this is not the default, for historical reasons).
\cfg{xhtml-index-filename}{filename}
Sets the file name in which to store the document's index.
\cfg{xhtml-template-filename}{template}
Provides a template to be used when constructing the file names of each chapter or section of the document. This template should contain at least one formatting command, in the form of a per cent sign followed by a letter. (If you need a literal per cent sign, you can write %%.)

The formatting commands used in this template are:

%N
Expands to the visible title of the section, with white space removed. So in a chapter declared as "\C{fish} Catching Fish", this formatting command would expand to "CatchingFish".
%n
Expands to the type and number of the section, without white space. So in chapter 1 this would expand to "Chapter1"; in section A.4.3 it would expand to "SectionA.4.3", and so on. If the section has no number (an unnumbered chapter created using \U), this directive falls back to doing the same thing as %N.
%b
Expands to the bare number of the section. So in chapter 1 this would expand to "1"; in section A.4.3 it would expand to "A.4.3", and so on. If the section has no number (an unnumbered chapter created using \U), this directive falls back to doing the same thing as %N.
%k
Expands to the internal keyword specified in the section title. So in a chapter declared as "\C{fish} Catching Fish", this formatting command would expand to "fish". If the section has no keyword (an unnumbered chapter created using \U), this directive falls back to doing the same thing as %N.

These formatting directives can also be used in the \cfg{xhtml-template-fragment} configuration directive (see section 4.2.5).

\cfg{xhtml-single-filename}{filename}
Sets the file name in which to store the entire document, if Halibut is configured (using \cfg{xhtml-leaf-level}{0} to produce a single self-contained file. Both this directive and \cfg{xhtml-leaf-level}{0} are implicitly generated if you provide a file name parameter after the command-line option --html (see section 2.1).

4.2.2 Controlling the splitting into HTML files

By default, the HTML output from Halibut is split into multiple files. Each file typically contains a single chapter or section and everything below it, unless subsections of that chapter are themselves split off into further files.

Most files also contain a contents section, giving hyperlinks to the sections in the file and/or the sections below it.

The configuration directives listed below allow you to configure the splitting into files, and the details of the contents sections.

\cfg{xhtml-leaf-level}{depth}
This setting indicates the depth of section which should be given a "leaf" file (a file with no sub-files). So if you set it to 1, for example, then every chapter will be given its own HTML file, plus a top-level contents file. If you set this to 2, then each chapter and each \H section will have a file, and the chapter files will mostly just contain links to their sub-files.

If you set this option to zero, then the whole document will appear in a single file. If you do this, Halibut will call that file Manual.html instead of Contents.html.

This option is automatically set to zero if you provide a file name parameter after the command-line option --html (see section 2.1), because you have specified a single file name and so Halibut assumes you want the whole document to be placed in that file.

\cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-level}{depth}
This directive allows you to specify how deep the contents section in a particular file should go.

The level parameter indicates which level of contents section you are dealing with. 0 denotes the main contents section in the topmost file Contents.html; 1 denotes a contents section in a chapter file; 2 is a contents section in a file containing a \H heading, and so on. Currently you can't go below level 5 (which corresponds to a \S3 heading).

The depth parameter indicates the maximum depth of heading which will be shown in this contents section. Again, 1 denotes a chapter, 2 is a \H heading, 3 is a \S heading, and so on.

So, for example: \cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-1}{3} instructs Halibut to put contents links in chapter files for all sections down to \S level, but not to go into any more detail than that.

\cfg{xhtml-leaf-contains-contents}{boolean}
If you set this to true, then each leaf file will contain its own contents section which summarises the text within it.
\cfg{xhtml-leaf-smallest-contents}{number}
Contents sections in leaf files are not output at all if they contain very few entries (on the assumption that it just isn't worth bothering). This directive configures the minimum number of entries required in a leaf contents section to make Halibut bother generating it at all.

4.2.3 Including pieces of your own HTML

The directives in this section allow you to supply pieces of verbatim HTML code, which will be included in various parts of the output files.

\cfg{xhtml-head-end}{HTML text}
The text you provide in this directive is placed at the end of the <HEAD> section of each output HTML file. So this is a good place to put, for example, a link to a CSS stylesheet.
\cfg{xhtml-body-tag}{HTML text}
The text you provide in this directive is used in place of the <BODY> tag in each output file. So if you wanted to define a background colour, for example, you could write \cfg{xhtml-body-tag}{<body bg="#123456">}.
\cfg{xhtml-body-start}{HTML text}
The text you provide in this directive is placed at the beginning of the <BODY> section of each output HTML file. So if you intend your HTML files to be part of a web site with a standard house style, and the style needs a header at the top of every page, this is where you can add that header.
\cfg{xhtml-body-end}{HTML text}
The text you provide in this directive is placed at the end of the <BODY> section of each output HTML file. So if you intend your HTML files to be part of a web site with a standard house style, and the style needs a footer at the bottom of every page, this is where you can add that footer.
\cfg{xhtml-address-start}{HTML text}
The text you provide in this directive is placed at the beginning of the <ADDRESS> section at the bottom of each output HTML file. This might be a good place to put authors' contact details, for example.
\cfg{xhtml-address-end}{HTML text}
The text you provide in this directive is placed at the end of the <ADDRESS> section at the bottom of each output HTML file, after the version IDs (if present).
\cfg{xhtml-navigation-attributes}{HTML attributes}
The text you provide in this directive is included inside the <P> tag containing the navigation links at the top of each page ("Previous" / "Contents" / "Next"). So if you wanted the navigation links to have a particular CSS style, you could write \cfg{xhtml-navigation-attributes}{class="foo"}, and the navigation-links paragraph would then begin with the tag <p class="foo">.

4.2.4 Configuring heading display

\cfg{xhtml-chapter-numeric}{boolean}
If this is set to true, then chapter headings will not contain the word "Chapter" (or whatever other word you have defined in its place - see section 3.3.5 and section 3.6); they will just contain the chapter number, followed by the chapter title. If you set this to false, chapter headings will be prefixed by "Chapter" or equivalent.
\cfg{xhtml-chapter-suffix}{text}
This specifies the suffix text to be appended to the chapter number, before displaying the chapter title. For example, if you set this to "", then the chapter title might look something like "Chapter 2: Doing Things".
\cfg{xhtml-section-numeric}{boolean}
Specifies whether section headings at a particular level should contain the word "Section" or equivalent (if false), or should be numeric only (if true). The level parameter specifies which level of section headings you want to affect: 0 means first-level headings (\H), 1 means second-level headings (\S), 2 means the level below that (\S2), and so on.
\cfg{xhtml-section-suffix}{text}
Specifies the suffix text to be appended to section numbers at a particular level, before displaying the section title.

4.2.5 Miscellaneous options

\cfg{xhtml-template-fragment}{template}
This directive lets you specify a template, with exactly the same syntax used in \cfg{xhtml-template-filename} (see section 4.2.1), to be used for the anchor names (A NAME="...") used to allow URLs to refer to specific sections within a particular HTML file. So if you set this to "%k", for example, then each individual section in your document will be addressable by means of a URL ending in a # followed by your internal section keyword.
\cfg{xhtml-versionid}{boolean}
If this is set to true, version ID paragraphs (defined using the \versionid command - see section 3.3.6) will be included visibly in the <ADDRESS> section at the bottom of each HTML file. If it is set to false, they will be omitted completely.
\cfg{xhtml-suppress-address}{boolean}
If this is set to true, the <ADDRESS> section at the bottom of each HTML file will be omitted completely. (This will therefore also cause version IDs not to be included.)
\cfg{xhtml-author}{text}
The text supplied here goes in a <META name="author"> tag in the output HTML files, so that browsers which support this can automatically identify the author of the document.
\cfg{xhtml-description}{text}
The text supplied here goes in a <META name="description"> tag in the output HTML files, so that browsers which support this can easily pick out a brief description of the document.

4.2.6 Default settings

The default settings for Halibut's HTML output format are:

\cfg{xhtml-contents-filename}{Contents.html}
\cfg{xhtml-index-filename}{IndexPage.html}
\cfg{xhtml-template-filename}{%n.html}
\cfg{xhtml-single-filename}{Manual.html}
\cfg{xhtml-template-fragment}{%b}

\cfg{xhtml-leaf-level}{2}
\cfg{xhtml-leaf-contains-contents}{false}
\cfg{xhtml-leaf-smallest-contents}{4}
\cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-0}{2}
\cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-1}{3}
\cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-2}{4}
\cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-3}{5}
\cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-4}{6}
\cfg{xhtml-contents-depth-5}{7}

\cfg{xhtml-head-end}{}
\cfg{xhtml-body-tag}{<body>}
\cfg{xhtml-body-start}{}
\cfg{xhtml-body-end}{}
\cfg{xhtml-address-start}{}
\cfg{xhtml-address-end}{}
\cfg{xhtml-navigation-attributes}{}

\cfg{xhtml-versionid}{true}
\cfg{xhtml-suppress-address}{false}
\cfg{xhtml-author}{}
\cfg{xhtml-description}{}

\cfg{xhtml-chapter-numeric}{false}
\cfg{xhtml-chapter-suffix}{: }

\cfg{xhtml-section-numeric}{0}{true}
\cfg{xhtml-section-suffix}{0}{ }

\cfg{xhtml-section-numeric}{1}{true}
\cfg{xhtml-section-suffix}{1}{ }

... and so on for all section levels below this ...

4.3 Windows Help

This output format generates data that can be used by the Windows Help program WINHELP.EXE. There are two actual files generated, one ending in .hlp and the other ending in .cnt.

The Windows Help output format supports the following configuration directives:

\cfg{winhelp-filename}{filename}
Sets the output file name in which to store the man page. This directive is implicitly generated if you provide a file name parameter after the command-line option --winhelp (see section 2.1).

Your output file name should end with .hlp; if it doesn't, Halibut will append it. Halibut will also generate a contents file (ending in .cnt) alongside the file name you specify.

\cfg{winhelp-topic}{topic-name}
This directive defines a Windows Help topic name in the current section. Topic names can be used by the program invoking WINHELP.EXE to jump straight to a particular section. So you can use this for context-sensitive help.

For example, if you used this directive in a particular section:

\cfg{winhelp-topic}{savingfiles}

then a Windows application could invoke Windows Help to jump to that particular section in the help file like this:

WinHelp(hwnd, "mydoc.hlp", HELP_COMMAND,
        (DWORD)"JI(`',`savingfiles')");

You can use this configuration directive many times, in many different subsections of your document, in order to define a lot of different help contexts which you can use in this way.

The default settings for the Windows Help output format are:

\cfg{winhelp-filename}{output.hlp}

and no \cfg{winhelp-topic} directives anywhere.

4.4 Unix man pages

This output format generates a Unix man page. That is to say, it generates nroff input designed to work with the -mandoc macro package.

The available configuration options for this format are as follows:

\cfg{man-filename}{filename}
Sets the output file name in which to store the man page. This directive is implicitly generated if you provide a file name parameter after the command-line option --man (see section 2.1).
\cfg{man-identity}{text}{text...}
This directive is used to generate the initial .TH directive that appears at the top of a man page. It expects to be followed by some number of brace pairs containing text, which will be used in the headers and footers of the formatted output.

A traditional order for the arguments appears to be:

  1. The name of the program.
  2. The (numeric) manual section.
  3. The date that the man page was written.
  4. The name of any containing suite of which the program is a part.
  5. The name of the author of the man page.

For example, a typical man page might contain

\cfg{man-identity}{make-foo}{1}{June 2003}{foo-utils}{Fred Bloggs}
\cfg{man-headnumbers}{boolean}
If this is set to true, then section headings in the man page will have their section numbers displayed as usual. If set to false, the section numbers will be omitted. (man pages traditionally have section names such as "SYNOPSIS", "OPTIONS" and "BUGS", and do not typically number them, so false is the setting which conforms most closely to normal man style.)
\cfg{man-mindepth}{depth}
If this is set to a number greater than 0, then section headings higher than the given depth will not be displayed. If it is set to zero, all section headings will be displayed as normal.

The point of this is so that you can use the same Halibut input file to generate a quick-reference man page for a program, and to include that man page as an appendix in your program's full manual. If you are to include the man page as an appendix, then the internal headings within the page will probably need to be at \H or \S level; therefore, when you format that input file on its own to create the man page itself, you will need to have defined a \C and possibly a \H heading beforehand, which you don't want to see displayed.

Here's an example. You might have a file appendix.but, which simply says

\A{manpages} \cw{man} pages for the Foo tool suite

\cfg{man-mindepth}{2}

Then you have a file make-foo.but, and probably others like it as well, each of which looks something like this:

\cfg{man-identity}{make-foo}{1}{June 2003}{foo-utils}{Fred Bloggs}

\H{man-foo} \cw{man} page for \c{make-foo}

\S{man-foo-name} NAME

\c{make-foo} - create Foo files for the Foo tool suite

\S{man-foo-synopsis} SYNOPSIS

... and so on ...

So when you're generating your main manual, you can include appendix.but followed by make-foo.but and any other man pages you have, and your man pages will be formatted neatly as part of an appendix. Then, in a separate run of Halibut, you can just do

halibut appendix.but make-foo.but

and this will generate a man page output.1, in which the headings "man pages for the Foo tool suite" and "man page for make-foo" will not be displayed because of the man-mindepth directive. So the first visible heading in the output man page will be "NAME", exactly as a user would expect.

The default settings for the man page output format are:

\cfg{man-filename}{output.1}
\cfg{man-identity}{}
\cfg{man-headnumbers}{false}
\cfg{man-mindepth}{0}

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