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

[Robert Sparks <[e-mail]>]

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!
>