HTML Reference Manual

[fkohrt]

Hi, I love that the CRAN entry contains links to the reference manual both in PDF and HTML format. Can you explain how this was achieved? Like, how was the HTML format built and how is the link added to the CRAN entry?

[reilly-lab]

Hi Florian! I wish I had a more sophisticated answer for you, but I just used devtools::build_manual(). This will create an HTML manual in your package root.

[fkohrt]

That's strange – for me, running devtools::build_manual() only creates the PDF manual. Also, looking at the source of the function, it only ever calls Rd2pdf. Are you really sure it is created by that function?

[reilly-lab]

Weird -- let me check. When I was submitting the package to CRAN, they said they preferred no PDF manual and that the package would build it as needed when a user loaded it. I recall loading library(tinytex) then building the manual using devtools. Unless somehow it created Rd2pdf during one of the pkgdwn steps (e.g., pkgdwn::build_reference()). I'll get you an answer!

[fkohrt]

I think I got it: HTML manuals are now created for every package on CRAN and I just happened to look at the CRAN entry of ConversationAlign when this was rolled out. The function that is responsible is probably tools::pkg2HTML(), which runs on CRAN servers...

[reilly-lab]

Thanks Florian! This sounds familiar -- I had built a manual the standard way using devtools, and they asked me to remove it before approving the submission. Sorry for leading you astray here.

[fkohrt]

No, thank you for the quick response ❤️