Documentation access problems.
I'm new to PostgreSQL, having done a little work with MySQL in the
past. Part of the reason for changing to PostgreSQL is some of the
differences but to understand them I need docs of course. Now there
are plenty of books, but I can't find any to examine in local
bookshops (pretty poor for a town with two Universities) and I'm
having problems with the PDF docs because of my eyesight.
The PDFs are of high quality in terms of effort and content, but I
can't get the text large enough to see and yet scroll smoothly
enough under Windows XP on a fairly new machine (3GHz Pentium with
2GB RAM). I've explored the accessibility features of Acrobat Reader
8 and when trying to get it to read to me, it starts reading a
dialog box that doesn't appear on the screen, and then locks up.
Using Narrator through Windows Accessibility is really odious, with
almost no control over what is happening.
The Adobe Reader says that the accessibility features of PDF
documents are not in place for this doc, (I'm presently reading
"http://www.postgresql.org/files/documentation/pdf/8.2/postgresql-8.2-A4.pdf")
and I think if they were I might be able to make it reflow the text
so I can have large print and fit it on the screen. However, I
don't know anything about the production of PDFs in practice, so
don't know what is really possible here. So I'm not in a position to
ask for some of the more advanced features.
I don't know what the document production system is, but I was
hoping that it is all under program control, and thus it would be
relatively easy for someone to say "Double the print size
throughout" and all the pagination, numbering, contents and indices
would sort themselves out. [OK, things are never THAT easy :-), but
in principle...] So could someone generate a large print edition of
the docs so I don't have to fight screen readers and magnifiers to
access this stuff, please? Changing the fonts to sans-serif might
be another option, but I imagine that what with code, emphasized
text, normal text, and other typographical conventions this would be
more difficult to get right than making the print bigger.
If this is too difficult, I have found the Web versions, but don't know
how much (if anything) is lost in making the documents fit HTML.
Thank you,
Hugh
Hugh Sasse wrote:
If this is too difficult, I have found the Web versions, but don't know
how much (if anything) is lost in making the documents fit HTML.
I suggest you read the HTML pages. The information is the same. In
fact, I think the question is "how much is lost in making the documents
fit PDF", rather than HTML. There are some tables that are a bit messed
up in PDF, that look perfectly well in HTML.
--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.
Hugh Sasse <hgs@dmu.ac.uk> writes:
... I have found the Web versions, but don't know
how much (if anything) is lost in making the documents fit HTML.
Nothing --- the HTML version is what I invariably consult. So if you
have decent reader tools for HTML, by all means go with that.
regards, tom lane
Tom Lane wrote:
Hugh Sasse <hgs@dmu.ac.uk> writes:
... I have found the Web versions, but don't know
how much (if anything) is lost in making the documents fit HTML.Nothing --- the HTML version is what I invariably consult. So if you
have decent reader tools for HTML, by all means go with that.
me too </aolmode>
I do think though that there is a good case for producing PDFs for sight
impaired people, on pgfoundry if not as part of our standard docs
production.
cheers
andrew (whose grandmother was legally blind for many years)
me too </aolmode>
I do think though that there is a good case for producing PDFs for sight
impaired people, on pgfoundry if not as part of our standard docs
production.
It should be standard docs imo. PDF is a heck of a lot easier to read if
you have a good PDF reader. Not to mention print.
Joshua D. Drake
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/
"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
It should be standard docs imo. PDF is a heck of a lot easier to read if
you have a good PDF reader.
Just out of curiosity, what would that be? I've used both Acrobat and
Preview, and I do not like either.
(As to the original point, I'm all for fixing the "PDF accessibility
features" Hugh mentioned, but I'm afraid it may be a research project
to find out how/whether our document production tools can do that.)
regards, tom lane
Tom Lane wrote:
"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
It should be standard docs imo. PDF is a heck of a lot easier to read if
you have a good PDF reader.Just out of curiosity, what would that be? I've used both Acrobat and
Preview, and I do not like either.
I use Evince personally. I used to like Acrobat but it has gotten really
bloated. However the best one I have ever seen is kpdf, but I have never
been able to get KDE stable for me (I am not interested in a thread on
this ;)).
The big thing for me, is a single document, zero clicks, that is
searchable. PDF and plain text are the only thing that give me that. If
you are really zealous you can even use Beagle (which I don't) to
preindex the PDF for you for easy searching.
(As to the original point, I'm all for fixing the "PDF accessibility
features" Hugh mentioned, but I'm afraid it may be a research project
to find out how/whether our document production tools can do that.)
Yeah possibly.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
regards, tom lane
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/
Am Freitag, 23. M�rz 2007 15:15 schrieb Hugh Sasse:
The PDFs are of high quality in terms of effort and content, but I
can't get the text large enough to see
How large would you need it to be? I can zoom both the PDF and the HTML so
that an "n" is 5mm high.
--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
Tom Lane wrote:
"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
It should be standard docs imo. PDF is a heck of a lot easier to read if
you have a good PDF reader.Just out of curiosity, what would that be? I've used both Acrobat and
Preview, and I do not like either.
Have you tried acroread recently? Version 7 is much better than previous
version -- at least in that it actually, you know, works...
It still, incredibly, has the stupid 1980s style MDI interface though. But as
long as you're only working with one document at a time it's usable. Much
faster than navigating separate web pages. I don't use it for the Postgres
docs which are reasonable to navigate in HTML, but for something like the SQL
spec where I want to be able to search through hundreds of pages and jump
around repeatedly it's much faster.
--
Gregory Stark
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com
Peter Eisentraut wrote:
Am Freitag, 23. M�rz 2007 15:15 schrieb Hugh Sasse:
The PDFs are of high quality in terms of effort and content, but I
can't get the text large enough to seeHow large would you need it to be? I can zoom both the PDF and the HTML so
that an "n" is 5mm high.
I wonder if we can have a stylesheet option that says, Large Print?
I believe there is actually a Large Print standard .... /me googles
http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/standards.htm
Although it doesn't talk about specific font sizes etc..
Joshua D. Drake
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
Am Freitag, 23. M�rz 2007 15:15 schrieb Hugh Sasse:
The PDFs are of high quality in terms of effort and content, but I
can't get the text large enough to see
You trimmed that -- it is large enough if I can put up with non-smooth
scrolling. It seems to need to be bigger than the other fonts I use:
I think the Times in Adobe comes out with the thin strokes really thin.
How large would you need it to be? I can zoom both the PDF and the HTML so
that an "n" is 5mm high.
It's a variable function of my vision, lighting, but I usually use 24 point
on VDUs, In this terminal (because Lucida Console doesn't have thin strokes,
the n's are about 5 mm high, but I'd like them bigger if possible. I'm
not the limiting case, a former colleague liked her text about 2cm tall.
Thank you,
Hugh
Hugh Sasse wrote:
It's a variable function of my vision, lighting, but I usually use 24 point
on VDUs, In this terminal (because Lucida Console doesn't have thin strokes,
the n's are about 5 mm high, but I'd like them bigger if possible. I'm
not the limiting case, a former colleague liked her text about 2cm tall.
Would fixed width font help you?
Thank you,
Hugh
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
Hugh Sasse wrote:
It's a variable function of my vision, lighting, but I usually use 24 point
on VDUs, In this terminal (because Lucida Console doesn't have thin strokes,
the n's are about 5 mm high, but I'd like them bigger if possible. I'm
not the limiting case, a former colleague liked her text about 2cm tall.Would fixed width font help you?
That's almost the right question :-) but it's not the width of the
characters which would help, it is the width of the narrowest strokes
in the characters. I don't have a clue what typographers would call
that. I don't need to push this as far as Helvetica or Ariel, where
all the strokes are the same width, though that would help some people,
including some with dyslexia. Also one needs fixed-with and proportional
fonts as part of the semantic information in the document.
I suppose the question to ask now is: what is the current production
system for the PDFs? If that is known then we can see what variables
can be adjusted within reason. I'd like to improve it for me and others
in my position without making it typographically hideous for fully sighted
people :-).
Hugh
Hugh Sasse wrote:
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
Hugh Sasse wrote:
It's a variable function of my vision, lighting, but I usually use 24 point
on VDUs, In this terminal (because Lucida Console doesn't have thin strokes,
the n's are about 5 mm high, but I'd like them bigger if possible. I'm
not the limiting case, a former colleague liked her text about 2cm tall.Would fixed width font help you?
That's almost the right question :-) but it's not the width of the
characters which would help, it is the width of the narrowest strokes
in the characters. I don't have a clue what typographers would call
that.
Maybe a completely different typeface like Gentium may be helpful?
I suppose the question to ask now is: what is the current production
system for the PDFs? If that is known then we can see what variables
can be adjusted within reason. I'd like to improve it for me and others
in my position without making it typographically hideous for fully sighted
people :-).
We use openjade.
--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
Tom Lane wrote:
"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
It should be standard docs imo. PDF is a heck of a lot easier to read if
you have a good PDF reader.Just out of curiosity, what would that be? I've used both Acrobat and
Preview, and I do not like either.I use Evince personally. I used to like Acrobat but it has gotten really
bloated. However the best one I have ever seen is kpdf, but I have never
been able to get KDE stable for me (I am not interested in a thread on
this ;)).
I'm not familiar enough with these to comment.
Meanwhile I have phoned adobe (because I couldn't see where to report this
bug. They told me that it could be due to a bug in the document [which
surprised me -- anything that fundamental ought to yield an error message[
but there are no tools (like lint for C) for testing things like this.
I said that it looks OK, but they said it could still have problems.
So I've tried other PDFs and in general they don't crash in the same way.
Nonetheless, Adobe Reader should not crash in my opinion, so I have raised
this:
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/support/index.cfm?event=casedetail&id=0200194921&loc=en_us
<quote>
When attempting to read the PosgreSQL documentation
(http://www.postgresql.org/files/documentation/pdf/8.2/postgresql-8.2-A4.pdf)
I found the text either too small or large enough but the scrolling
was jerky, and thus annoying to use. So I attempt to select Rea d
Out Loud -> begin reading (ctrl-Y) off the View menu. I then get a
small blue bar appearing in the bottom right corner of the windwo,
wich a red circle to the right which has a red cross in it. This
looks like a "close" button in windows but it is round and not on
the blue bar. Then the reader starts reading a dial ogue which is
not visible on the screen. After a while the reader crashes and I
must then kill it with the task manager.
I have tried a few other documents now, and they seem to be working ok, however the way this fails is not really optimal :-) Maybe
something more useful can be done in the case caused by this document.
Thank you.
Hugh
</quote>
[There are more typos in there than I thought!]
If they can't fix the crash they may be able to tell us something
useful.
Thank you,
Hugh
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
Hugh Sasse wrote:
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
Hugh Sasse wrote:
It's a variable function of my vision, lighting, but I usually use 24 point
on VDUs, In this terminal (because Lucida Console doesn't have thin strokes,
the n's are about 5 mm high, but I'd like them bigger if possible. I'm
not the limiting case, a former colleague liked her text about 2cm tall.Would fixed width font help you?
That's almost the right question :-) but it's not the width of the
characters which would help, it is the width of the narrowest strokes
in the characters. I don't have a clue what typographers would call
that.Maybe a completely different typeface like Gentium may be helpful?
Google gave me:
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=Gentium
and there are samples which are more readable in PDF.
The samples are on A5 rather than A4. I wonder if the PostgreSQL docs
were output to A$ whether that might help me, because I'd be able to
double the size before lines flowed off the screen? Thanks for this
info about Gentium -- I rather like it.
I suppose the question to ask now is: what is the current production
system for the PDFs? If that is known then we can see what variables
can be adjusted within reason. I'd like to improve it for me and others
in my position without making it typographically hideous for fully sighted
people :-).We use openjade.
Ah, so the HTML is the source, the DSSSL is used (about which I know
nothing) to get (to something to get to) the PDF. It would take me
a while to reach the stage where I could contribute anything useful
in this area, alas.
Thank you,
Hugh
Hugh Sasse wrote:
I'd like to improve it for me and others
in my position without making it typographically hideous for fully sighted
people :-).
There is no reason we cannot produce several versions of the docs. It
doesn't have to be one size fits all.
cheers
andrew
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
Hugh Sasse wrote:
I'd like to improve it for me and others
in my position without making it typographically hideous for fully sighted
people :-).
There is no reason we cannot produce several versions of the docs. It doesn't
have to be one size fits all.
Agreed, but it is nice to be able discuss paper docs with other people.
And we don't want to "frighten the horses" if someone hits the wrong link
for the download.
cheers
andrew
Hugh
The samples are on A5 rather than A4. I wonder if the PostgreSQL docs
were output to A$ whether that might help me, because I'd be able to
double the size before lines flowed off the screen? Thanks for this
info about Gentium -- I rather like it.I suppose the question to ask now is: what is the current production
system for the PDFs? If that is known then we can see what variables
can be adjusted within reason. I'd like to improve it for me and others
in my position without making it typographically hideous for fully sighted
people :-).We use openjade.
Ah, so the HTML is the source,
No, docbook is the source of which you apply DSSSL to to generate PS,
PDF, HTML, XML, Latex etc..
Joshua D. Drake
the DSSSL is used (about which I know
nothing) to get (to something to get to) the PDF. It would take me
a while to reach the stage where I could contribute anything useful
in this area, alas.Thank you,
Hugh
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/
I wrote :
Ah, so the HTML is the source,
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
No, docbook is the source of which you apply DSSSL to to generate PS,
PDF, HTML, XML, Latex etc..
OK, well I need to become familiar with docbook for other projects, so
I may be able to contribute later. Thank you.
Joshua D. Drake
Hugh
Hugh Sasse wrote:
I wrote :
Ah, so the HTML is the source,
On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
No, docbook is the source of which you apply DSSSL to to generate PS,
PDF, HTML, XML, Latex etc..OK, well I need to become familiar with docbook for other projects, so
I may be able to contribute later. Thank you.
My pleasure. Start with Docbook simple, less to learn. :)
Joshua D. Drake
Joshua D. Drake
Hugh
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/
Joshua D. Drake wrote:
The big thing for me, is a single document, zero clicks, that is
searchable. PDF and plain text are the only thing that give me that. If
you are really zealous you can even use Beagle (which I don't) to
preindex the PDF for you for easy searching.
Lots of projects publish their HTML docs in two formats: One Big HTML
file with everything; Broken up into many HTML files that link to each
other. This would allow you you have one big searchable document.
Matthew T. O'Connor wrote:
Joshua D. Drake wrote:
The big thing for me, is a single document, zero clicks, that is
searchable. PDF and plain text are the only thing that give me that. If
you are really zealous you can even use Beagle (which I don't) to
preindex the PDF for you for easy searching.Lots of projects publish their HTML docs in two formats: One Big HTML
file with everything; Broken up into many HTML files that link to each
other. This would allow you you have one big searchable document.
Agreed.
--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com
+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
"Matthew T. O'Connor" <matthew@zeut.net> writes:
Lots of projects publish their HTML docs in two formats: One Big HTML
file with everything; Broken up into many HTML files that link to each
other. This would allow you you have one big searchable document.
The key word there being "big" ;-) ... I don't have any problem with
making such a version available on the website, but I don't think
shipping two versions of the HTML docs in our tarballs is reasonable.
regards, tom lane
Tom Lane wrote:
"Matthew T. O'Connor" <matthew@zeut.net> writes:
Lots of projects publish their HTML docs in two formats: One Big HTML
file with everything; Broken up into many HTML files that link to each
other. This would allow you you have one big searchable document.The key word there being "big" ;-) ... I don't have any problem with
making such a version available on the website, but I don't think
shipping two versions of the HTML docs in our tarballs is reasonable.
I think having the single HTML file version available on our web site is
enough.
--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com
+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
Bruce Momjian wrote:
Tom Lane wrote:
"Matthew T. O'Connor" <matthew@zeut.net> writes:
Lots of projects publish their HTML docs in two formats: One Big HTML
file with everything; Broken up into many HTML files that link to each
other. This would allow you you have one big searchable document.The key word there being "big" ;-) ... I don't have any problem with
making such a version available on the website, but I don't think
shipping two versions of the HTML docs in our tarballs is reasonable.I think having the single HTML file version available on our web site is
enough.
Agreed.