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 FAQ / 64
  Format of FAQ items
 
Todd, I'm geared to start snarfing the RTL Auction & Shipping FAQ, to start giving form to the LUGNET FAQ. (LUGFAQ? :-) I am torn between two data formats, though it should be relatively easy to switch from one to the other. I think that whatever (...) (25 years ago, 23-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Format of FAQ items
 
(...) You've convinced me otherwise now. Mea culpa. :-, (...) I think it would take in the whole sub-FAQ. This is (currently) my strategy for giving localized names to the different categories. Someone looking for starter questions could probably (...) (25 years ago, 23-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Format of FAQ items
 
(...) How come? For specifying the ordering? For ease of editing? What about translations? Maintenance? Bookmarking? Grepping? (...) Something analogous to #include in C then? Would that slurp in an entire sub-FAQ? Or only relevant (...) (25 years ago, 23-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Format of FAQ items
 
(...) Let me expand on this. It all depends on how it's converted into readable form. A one-file FAQ would certainly slurp everything in. An HTML conversion might take just the question titles to put up on the first page. Or maybe just the section's (...) (25 years ago, 23-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Format of FAQ items
 
(...) What about an outline format? I made a cool little utility that displays, in outline format, any sub-tree of the global ng tree...so from any category sub-homepage you can see what's there beneath it -- especially handy for things like loc (...) (25 years ago, 24-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
Todd Lehman (lehman@javanet.com) and Sproaticus (jsproat@geocities.com) writes lots of stuff: Guys! It sounds like you are mixing the raw data format and the presentation format. I'll try to stick to the raw data format here, and list the ideas I (...) (25 years ago, 24-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Format of FAQ items
 
(...) You mean like a master Table of Contents? Sure, okay. Question" How cautious do we want to get about creeping featuritis? :-, (...) Yep. (...) Oh, yeah. Integers are better for an enumerated value. (...) If you want to write the code for it, (...) (25 years ago, 24-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
(...) Sounds mostly good. Catch my exceptions down below. (...) Or some other tool; but I agree, a well-defined subset of HTML can and should be used. (...) (Please keep in mind Jacob, that these are nits I'm picking. :-) "Newsgroups" would be more (...) (25 years ago, 24-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Format of FAQ items
 
(...) Yes & no. 'Yes' in that a master TOC would/could appear. But 'no' in that the master TOC would just be a special case of a general-purpose sub- hierarchy TOC, which just happens to start at the top. I built one of these just for fun a couple (...) (25 years ago, 25-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
(...) I'd like to see Latin-1 as the raw data format, with conversions to the presentation formats of: (a) HTML for webpages and (b) Latin-1/ASCII for text documents (i.e. news postings). (...) Is this a choice between (a) 7-bit ASCII with HTML (...) (25 years ago, 25-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
(...) Oh man, I'm HOT on "lynx -dump -force_html"!! It doesn't do an absolutely perfect perfect job, but it comes *so* close, and I'll bet it can get even closer by specifying a custom config file on the command line. (...) Agreed -- only &xxx; (...) (25 years ago, 25-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Format of FAQ items
 
(...) Sure -- suppose you have a directory full of FAQ items, some of which have pretty much the same headers. e.g. Locations: /x/y/,/x/z/,/x/,/ Content-Language: qw Translated-From: er Topic-Level: 1 Instead of maintaining each of these in every (...) (25 years ago, 26-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
Sproaticus: [...] (...) Fine. Location: [comma-separated list of Lugnet relative URI's] (...) What about Translated-From: [ISO 639 language code] Translator: [translator, ISO date] so Revision: Todd Lehman, 1997-12-24 Revision: Minx Kelly, (...) (25 years ago, 26-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
(...) Fine. (...) Yes (but the first four _are_ ASCII characters). (...) Me too. And yes. Play well, Jacob ---...--- -- E-mail: sparre@cats.nbi.dk -- -- Web...: <URL:(URL) -- ---...--- (25 years ago, 26-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
(...) If we ban HTML _elements_ from the headers, then we don't need to escape '<' and '>'. There has never been a need to escape '"'. If we want to allow numeric character references outside Latin-1 (like '&#805;') we still have to escape (...) (25 years ago, 26-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
(...) Looks good to me. (...) You mean like, Revision: Todd Lehman, 19971224, en Revision: Minx Kelly, 19980921 Revision: Jacob Sparre Andersen, 19990221, da or some such? (...) More easily read by humans, probably just as easy to parse. What would (...) (25 years ago, 26-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
(...) Although rare, double-quote characters (") which appear inside of tags (for example inside of URLs), have to be written as &quot; -- e.g. <IMG SRC="(URL) Double-quote characters (") appearing in normal text (outside of tags) don't have to be (...) (25 years ago, 26-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
(...) How is the Japanese language represented in HTML? I seem to remember seeing a page a few weeks ago that seemed like it used 2-byte ShiftJIS... I'd be shocked if they used 8-byte HTML entities. Can we imagine any possible uses for characters (...) (25 years ago, 26-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
Todd: (...) It depends on the chosen encoding of the document. I would expect most people^H^H^H^H^Hrogrammers to use plain 16 bit Unicode BMP[1]. Since I am too lazy to get my computer to operate with another character encoding (than Latin-1), I (...) (25 years ago, 27-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
Sproaticus: (...) No, like: Revision: Todd Lehman, 1997-12-24 Revision: Minx Kelly, 1998-09-21 Translated-From: en -> Revision: Jacob Sparre Andersen, 1999-02-21 <- Content-Language: da (...) Can't remember. I think you append "-" Hours (two digits) (...) (25 years ago, 27-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
(...) it sounds like a sneeze to me... "Ecu!" "Bless you" "Thanks" Steve (25 years ago, 27-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
(...) Since header order is important, this should work pretty well. (...) Not bad either. Wouldn't changing an included file imply that the including file has also changed? (...) ^^^...^^^ Huh? (...) But then we'd have to run the thing through a (...) (25 years ago, 27-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
Sproaticus: (...) Yes, but it is not equally clear. Please forget that I mentioned it. (...) No (but it would mean that it should be reprocessed). Imagine this: "translating.da": Content-Language: da Revision: Jacob Sparre Andersen, 1999-04-28 (...) (25 years ago, 28-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
(...) Oh waitaminute. I think I see where the confusion is. I'm not suggesting that the header text from the included file be inserted into the including file. What I mean to say is that during processing of the files, when the including file (...) (25 years ago, 28-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Progress so far, and a new header
 
FAQ crew, I've gathered 23 questions for the FAQ so far (1), and stuffed them into a holding patteren until the header format is closer to being finalized. In the mean time: I feel that we should allow an Originator header, to give credit towards (...) (25 years ago, 28-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
Another header...? I want to be able to make context-specific notes on the FAQ items, which will not be exposed in the final output. I'm thinking of something like a Comment: header, which the parser will discard during processing. Cheers, - jsproat (25 years ago, 28-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Raw FAQ data format (Was: Format of FAQ items)
 
Jeremy: (...) I didn't think so. What I tried to explain was how the processing tools would see the file _after_ the "Include" header had been processed. (...) ~~~...~~~ This is the critical part. I hadn't noticed it earlier. (...) Yes. Play well, (...) (25 years ago, 29-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
Jeremy: (...) Both the "Originator" and the "Comment" header entries make sense. Play well, Jacob ---...--- -- E-mail: sparre@cats.nbi.dk -- -- Web...: <URL:(URL) -- ---...--- Here's the edited list of header entries (please verify that I haven't (...) (25 years ago, 29-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Not to be anal-retentive, but you've forgotton the colons. Um, I'm not sure a pun was intended there. :-P Also, we should probably start keeping track of headers which may repeat, and those which are optional. Otherwise, it amtches my list. (...) (25 years ago, 29-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Format of FAQ items
 
(...) Jeremy, Here's what I was chattering about -- here's a little demo of the prototype ng-hierarchy-TOC generator that I use to help visualize the ng layout whenever a question comes up... A top-level overview, going 2 layers deep: (URL) Just the (...) (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) It was plain butt-ugly. -Tom McD. when replying, note nothing but the spamcake. (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Gesundheit! (...) Dude! All right! (...) In cases like this, it's perfectly OK to correct typos and misuses of trademarks (especially TLG trademarks). That is to say, this question could just as well be re-written as: Subject: What is (...) (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) SURE!!! --Todd (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) That's the crappiest pun I've ever heard! --Todd (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
Feces gone fart enough! (...) (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Probably just as well to let it slide. --Todd (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Pretty loose with your advice. -- Terry K -- (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Format of FAQ items
 
(...) Verrry nice. I have often wanted something like this for browsing Yahoo!, but it would never crystalize in my mind. If that made any sense. :-, (...) Could you give a formatting option to use a single size fixed-width font, wrapped at, say, 78 (...) (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Someone's taking cheap snots at my text... :-P (...) Yep. Path of least resistance for now. :-, I have every intention of editing these items, but with only 23 for right now, I'm still getting a feel for it. The FAQ items will be significantly (...) (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Betcha he'll crack under pressure. He's a stool pigeon. -Tom McD. (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) I almost bust a gut this morning. I'm just flushed with mirth. Cheers, - jsproat (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Mike won't be plunging into this thread. --Todd (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) A little too clogged for me. (25 years ago, 30-Apr-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) That's a real stinker, Mike! --Todd (25 years ago, 1-May-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) I guess we'll have to log that as a complaint. --Todd (25 years ago, 1-May-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) This bathroom humor is giving puns a bad name, and I think it's potty my fault for having that "Lar's hoppers" thread. Sorry for the rough edges in this thread, but if we all show some moral fiber and think of these jokes to ourselves in lieu (...) (25 years ago, 1-May-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
Ex-laxly my sediments [1], Lar. [1] corn;-) (...) (25 years ago, 1-May-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Um, someone's taking cheap snots at my text...? I should have nose you'd have a hankie for puns. Cheers, - jsproat (25 years ago, 4-May-99, to lugnet.off-topic.pun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Well, there was no .pun group at the time. Sorry. :-) (...) Sounds like you have it under control. :) --Todd (25 years ago, 4-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Gesundheit! (...) (25 years ago, 4-May-99, to lugnet.off-topic.pun)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) I'm really gonna hate myself for this ('cause I'm gonna haveta go back and find the relevant links) but there ought to be one more optional and repeating header for "Reference:". The data would be a URL to a LUGNET posting, Web site, whatever (...) (25 years ago, 5-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Yes. Play well, Jacob ---...--- -- E-mail: sparre@cats.nbi.dk -- -- Web...: <URL:(URL) -- ---...--- (25 years ago, 6-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  FAQ header entries (Was: Progress so far, and a new header)
 
Jeremy: (...) Good idea. Here comes the current edition of the FAQ header entries: Subject: [the question] Content-Language: [ISO 639 language code] Topic-Level: [integer, 0 is beginner/easy/simple] Revision: [author, ISO date] Location: (...) (25 years ago, 6-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: FAQ header entries (Was: Progress so far, and a new header)
 
(...) Thanks, Jacob. I've posted these in a semi-dedicated thread (1), and added notes on which ones are optional, and which ones may repeat. (...) Darn that Noah Webster. :-P Cheers, - jsproat 1. "Working sketch of FAQ item data format" (25 years ago, 6-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  How do I format an entry in the Lugnet FAQ?
 
Subject: How do I format an entry in the Lugnet FAQ? Content-Language: en Topic-Level: 1 Revision: Jacob Sparre Andersen, 1999-05-06 Location: /faq/ Reference: (URL) The raw file format for an entry in the Lugnet FAQ is a Usenet-like header, (...) (25 years ago, 6-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: How do I format an entry in the Lugnet FAQ?
 
(...) Cool -- thanks! :-, (...) Hmmm, what browsers in common use support 4.0? Specifically, do we want to rely on CSS? Do we require everyone to use the latest from Netscape and Microsoft? I suggest we go with something more widespread, such as 3.2 (...) (25 years ago, 6-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  New thread for new items (Was: How do I format an entry in the Lugnet FAQ?)
 
(...) I know I'm picking on your FAQ item Jacob, I swear it's not personal! :-, You're doing a great job and really helping us out. I think that new FAQ items should be put in a new thread, however -- to make finding them easier and to physically (...) (25 years ago, 6-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Me too. --Todd (25 years ago, 6-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: How do I format an entry in the Lugnet FAQ?
 
(...) Eeek -- not 4.0 -- probably not even 3.2 -- way unnecessarily complicated. IMO, no DTD, no nothing except a very restricted subset of HTML is really all that is necessary. The markup is only there at all (instead of pure plain-text) because (...) (25 years ago, 6-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Thanks guys. You realize, this would keep me away from my SW legos... :-P Would the "Xref:" header embedded into the LUGNET nntp messages work for a reference? e.g.: Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.faq:186 in the nntp message translates into: (...) (25 years ago, 6-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
Jeremy: (...) No. We should use full URL's, so we can refer to data outside Lugnet too. Play well, Jacob ---...--- -- E-mail: sparre@cats.nbi.dk -- -- Web...: <URL:(URL) -- ---...--- (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: How do I format an entry in the Lugnet FAQ?
 
Todd: (...) Sorry. You are right. Allowed elements: P A DL DT DD UL OL LI CODE STRONG EM PRE H2 (H1 is reserved for the question) More? Which attributes? Jacob ---...--- -- E-mail: sparre@cats.nbi.dk -- -- Web...: <URL:(URL) -- ---...--- (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Ahh, good idea. The URLs for the articles are less stable than the Xref lines are. For example, when the new web-interface/hierarchy is moved into place, shortly after that will come a remapping of all the article URLs (but the old ones will (...) (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) I was afraid of that. :-, (...) I'm prone to just go with the simpler form, copying the X-Ref header, for several reasons: a) I don't have to enter the Web interface and search for messages to find the URL, b) The URL can be automagically (...) (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Tags
 
(...) I pretty much agree with Todd, except for the H3 -- I'm personally nervous to allow any H elements. As for attributes, I say allow them with the disclaimer that we will ignore them unless we're surprised otherwise. Cheers, - jsproat (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Tags
 
(...) That sounds like a pretty good list. Also need: - <I> and <B>, - <TT> and possibly <VAR> for things like command lines, program names, and newsgroup names, - <BR> for breaking closely-spaced runs of lines like command line sequences, - (...) (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Tags
 
(...) I'm a bit nervous about the <Hn> family too...but some types of answers (see the LDraw FAQ for an example) can get pretty long and do benefit from little section headers, right? --Todd (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Tags
 
(...) True. How about H5 or H6, then? Cheers, - jsproat (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) The more I think about it, the more I think that this is exactly what I'm oging to do. The "Reference:" header would be a fully-formed URL, while the "X-Ref:" header would tell the parser that it needs to be resolved into a LUGNET article URL. (...) (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Tags
 
(...) SO we just reserve H1 and H2 for the parser? I can live with that. (...) Is the "CLASS=y" attribute part of CSS? Cheers, - jsproat (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Tags
 
(...) Heh heh. Well, <H4> is typically the same size as the base font, but in bold, so I don't think anything but <H3> is needed, if that even is. Alternatives to <H3>x</H3> might be <P><B>x</B></P> or [maybe] better yet <P CLASS=y><B>x</B></P>...? (...) (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) Independent of the other issue, about representing arbitrarily URLs as Jacob suggested, yes, copying the X-Ref header char for char (anything to the right of the 'X-Ref:' part) is perfectly safe for this purpose. (...) Right now they're not -- (...) (25 years ago, 7-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) But don't copy the name 'X-Ref' if you copy the data -- that would be wicked confusing because what you want is a reference to a prior article, and the 'X-Ref' header of NNTP articles *isn't* a reference to a prior article but rather an ID of (...) (25 years ago, 8-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Tags
 
(...) Parser? As in document validation or transmogrification? (...) Yup, but not in a bad way as long as some sort of backward-compatible non- CSS code (such as <B></B>) were used in combination with <P></P> for section titles. That is, on old (...) (25 years ago, 9-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  (canceled)
 
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) I don't understand the difference -- is it just how the text is formatted, or does that number do some magic? Cheers, - jsproat (25 years ago, 10-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Tags
 
(...) Er... the slurpage stage whereupon the headers and body are transformed into HTML. Cheers, - jsproat (25 years ago, 10-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Tags
 
<MPG.119ea264f27724d...ugnet.com> Distribution: X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Todd: [...] (...) Good! Play well, Jacob ---...--- -- E-mail: sparre@cats.nbi.dk -- -- Web...: <URL:(URL) -- ---...--- (25 years ago, 11-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Tags
 
(...) Erm, headers? I was thinking more along the lines of using H1 and H2 for subject lines, categories, etc. in the final HTML. Sorry for the confusion. Cheers, - jsproat (25 years ago, 12-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Tags
 
(...) I'm confused; why/how would <H1> or <H2> be used in the headers? --Todd (25 years ago, 12-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Progress so far, and a new header
 
(...) It's a semantic difference. - 'References' refers to other articles (ancestors). - 'Xref' is self-referential and refers both to itself and to any other copies of the same article if it has been crossposted. So copying the 'Xref' header (and (...) (25 years ago, 13-May-99, to lugnet.faq)
 
  Re: Tags
 
(...) Ahh, cool-o. --Todd (25 years ago, 14-May-99, to lugnet.faq)

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