Re: [Tools-discuss] RFCs TOC render in plaintext

[Robert Sparks <[e-mail]>]

On 8/30/22 8:54 AM, Jaime Jiménez wrote:
> Thank you all for the interesting discussion!
>
> I was unaware of the previous discussions and I did not participate in 
> them, sorry for that.
> @Robert, producing a whole new RFC on RSWG for this purpose sounds a 
> bit overkill for me.
> I think I probably won't be able to fix it but, where is the link to 
> the HTMLizer code? I could have a look.

https://github.com/ietf-tools/rfc2html

Though, again, I encourage you to look at what Lars is working on at 
https://github.com/ietf-tools/datatracker/pull/4082.

(We will likely be standing up another test instance soon for people to 
try this out without having to run it themselves).

>
> Ciao!
>
> Jaime
>
> On 22.8.2022 16.44, Robert Sparks wrote:
>>
>> On 8/22/22 8:07 AM, Jaime Jiménez wrote:
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> this topic has been discussed before, but I'd like to raise it once 
>>> again.
>>>
>>> The current default datatracker RFC template has a bug for many of 
>>> our RFCs.
>>> Draft versions of the same documents render the table of contents in 
>>> html but only plaintext in the RFC.
>>> The problem applies to ALL RFCs after RFC 8650 in CoRE WG. For example:
>>>
>>> RD RFC with plaintext TOC:https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9176
>>> RD draft with HTML 
>>> TOC:https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-core-resource-directory-28
>>>
>>> I have been told that the plaintext format for RFCs has changed and 
>>> they are no longer paginated (why??)
>>
>> That is the root of all that you are asking about and the why is in 
>> RFC7994.
>>
>> The _why_ is that it was what was published as a set of RFCs that 
>> went through community wide last calls. The team that defined the 
>> output formats had a contingent that believed very strongly that the 
>> text should not be paginated, and that made it through as rough 
>> consensus at the time. (Fwiw, I was in the rough). Heather and the 
>> IAB called this change out _many_ times, on many lists before the 
>> docs were published, and in Plenary sessions, yet here we are with 
>> people who were present while it was happening (a very long time ago) 
>> still being surprised.
>>
>> Drafts do not look this way because the IESG did not agree to change 
>> the requirements for the format of text Internet-Drafts at the time.
>>
>> Your recourse now, should you really want to change the base 
>> definition of the text output format for RFCs is to try to get 
>> consensus to do so in the RSWG and publish a document that obsoletes 
>> RFC7994.
>>
>> Lars is experimenting with a replacement for the htmlization of text 
>> with a rendering of the html that looks like the text htmlization. It 
>> would be worth looking to see if the ToC for that is any more useful 
>> to you.
>>
>> RjS
>>
>>> and therefore there are no page numbers in the TOC.
>>>
>>> I see this as a bug, as many users still prefer the "htmlized" 
>>> version over the new html RFC format and makes it pretty much 
>>> unusable without pagination.
>>> Could this please be fixed to how it was before the update?
>>>
>>>
>>> Ciao!
>>>