[lug] reStructuredText, PDFs and sphinx

[Davide Del Vento]

> I'll test bruce and let you know.

Just to inform you about this.

I did some extensive tests, and I'm disappointed. In principle, I like
this tool a lot. It has several of the features I need, e.g. text
source, multi-screen support, presenter view, etc.
Unfortunately, it is not ready for prime time. The examples sometimes
crash with a python error like "Exception: Child not found:
<bruce.page.Page object at 0xaf2458c>". On some screens the text is
not visible but goes besides the edges of the monitor. Hitting ESC
completely closes the tool (basically killing the talk - imagine doing
that on stage and having to re-open it and re-go to where you were)

Then there are a few "convenience" things that are missing/improvable
- such as the "presenter view" is weird, for example slide number and
time is displayed to the whole audience (as opposed to just the
presenter); you can go ahead one slide only with the left-arrow button
and not with the low-arrow or pageDown too (same for backward); you
cannot toggle full-screen to window or viceversa (probably related to
the ESC-kill mentioned above) but you have to close and reopen the
program; you cannot switch screens either (you have to close and
reopen); and some other similar annoyances.

If it were just for the missing/improvable stuff, I'd started using it
an contributing. But the crashes are concerning, and there hasn't been
any commit since beginning of 2009. And the actual text source feels
more like XML than actual reStructuredText (i.e. more verbose and not
immediate to read for a humane being).

So I'm not saying I will not look at the tool again in the future
(probably when I have developer time to fix it), but I'm not starting
using it now in production as I hoped.

Regards,
Davide