\file{}: Use a sans-serif font for the filename itself.
Use the fncychap.sty package for fancy chapter headings.
Replace the \maketitle command with our own format. This is new, but it
looks a lot better than the old one.
Use \renewcommand instead of \def when extending or overriding standard LaTeX
commands. This makes it more LaTeX-like.
\idxcode{}: New macro; used to mark things that would be \code{} for entry
into the index. This allows easily switching things around for the
font used in the index. (O'Reilly seems to keep it all plain roman
in the index. Looks reasonable in the Python documentation as well.)
\*index{}: Use \idxcode{} instead of {\codefont{}}.
semantic concepts.
Added two new ones (not discussed with Guido:
\constant{}: Markup for constants defined in Python modules.
\cfunction{}: Markup for C functions; these should probably be distinguished
by font, but are not at this time (since they're typically \code{} at
this point).
These are intended to support semantic markup. There are a number
of places in the documentation where the exact meaning of an
indentifier marked \code{} in the running text is ambiguous (could
be a module or a class, a function or a method, etc.). These are
intended to clarify the intent of the identifier for processing
applications and more intelligent style processing.
longer used anywhere. Use the {*desc} environments instead.
\var{}: Ensure that the argument is always set in roman italic, in case an
alternate font is being used for code. These keeps the result of
\var{} consistent.
Some minor changes to allow easier exploration of alternate fonts for code in
the running text. Haven't changed the selected font; I haven't found one that
has everything required! (The best non-monospaced font so far was missing
the <, >, and | characters, or at least had them at the wrong locations. It
also allowed confusion between upper-case I and lower-case L.)
{seealso} environment: Always start a new paragraph after the "See Also:"
line; this ensures that formatting is consistent for each subsequent
\see*{} item.
does the right thing if the openright option is given. Allows a
lot of crud to be removed from the document files' frontmatter
sections.
\endabstract Extend standard macro. (Called as \end{abstract}.)
Does the right thing if the openright option is given.
\optional Adjust to get the brackets right under latex2e.
used to add index references for built-in and standard modules, respectively.
Modified \bimodindex{} and \stmodindex{} to make the page number bold, to
allow the defining instance of a module to stand out in the index.
Check-ins which fix improper use of \bimodindex{} and \stmodindex{} will be
made as fixes are applied. Misc. indexing updates will occur as a side
effect in some cases.
the libdis.tex file I'm about to check in.
I'm not sure this is really an optimal solution yet, but it may be the best
alternative. It avoids describing the instructions as either data items or
functions.
This change was discussed with Guido. (Guido: Take a look at the LaTeX
output for this; if this is reasonable I'll go ahead and update the perl
code in myformat.perl to match.)
Fred Drake
Guido van Rossum