Re: [cdesktopenv-devel] Proposal: Stop building and distributing htag1 and ctag1

Well, I am still in favor of keeping dtmail. Having our own email client is still better than a few desktop environments which have none at all, even if it needs a little modernization. I do not want to rip things out unless absolutely necessary. I will first see how feasible it is to include all programs into one source via ifdefs, and then transition into a single binary with runtime flags for each stage.

Thank you for your time,
-Chase

On Sunday, November 30th, 2025 at 5:37 PM, Jon Trulson <jo...@ra...> wrote:

> On 11/29/25 10:34, Chase via cdesktopenv-devel wrote:
>
>> From my study of the code, htag2 under dthelp/parser/pass2 is simply a newer version of htag1 and ctag1 as they share 90% of the same code with pass2 having newer SCCS file dates. Also unlike some of the other parsers we have had like sgml to man which has been packaged separately by distributions, no one is using these old parsers. We don't use them anywhere either. I think there is a bigger case to stop building and distributing these old parsers than there was even with the font editor programs, at least those were graphical and built parts of CDE. htag1 and ctag1 do nothing. I am always hesitant to remove historical programs from CDE, but I truly feel these programs serve no purpose anymore. I propose we stop building and distributing them, and leave their inclusion optional to the user.
>
> Well dtmail is probably one that should be removed as well as it does not support "modern" things, like "security" :)
>
> But - these parsers are used for producing the help system. I've proposed getting rid of that in favor of just producing HTML (if possible) and using a local browser.
>
> The format it uses is SDL - which apparently some company licensed and still sells, though a different version that's what incorporated in CDE - at least when I looked at this some years ago.
>
> The idea was that people might ship applications, and they would want to also ship help files, and these are used to do that. I believe they are still used to produce CDE's own help files. Haven't looked at that stuff in while - but if they can be eliminated w/o breaking help generation, I'm fine with that.
>
> Better if dthelp and friends could be removed altogether with something more modern, like HTML/browser :)
>
> -jon
>
>> Thank you for your time,
>> -Chase
>>
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>
> --
> Jon Trulson
>
>   "The less you know, the more you believe."
>                            -- Bono