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Re: Contributing to Emacs Development
From: |
Eli Zaretskii |
Subject: |
Re: Contributing to Emacs Development |
Date: |
Sun, 12 Nov 2000 10:02:17 +0200 |
> Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 01:32:43 -0600
> From: address@hidden
>
> As I explained in another message, yes, an xref in the info
> file of a non default info file may well lead to the default version
> of the target. A correct solution of course would be to make the info
> document system version aware
Practical suggestions for this version-awareness are welcome.
One solution I have in mind is some way for the user to tell an Info
reader explicitly what version of a certain file to fetch, via some
variable or command. This, in addition to putting Info files in
version-specific directories, should solve all the possible cases
which were raised in this thread, including installation of Gnus on
top of a version that came with the latest Emacs distro.
> Stand alone viewers are not as easy; (I am averse to the
> solution of writing wrapper scripts for each stand alone info viewer
> that reorder the info path (info-e20, info-e21, etc)).
I don't see where stand-alone readers don't fit into this scheme.
Could you point out the problems with stand-alone readers you have in
mind?
> We'll be happy to listen to a solution for the remainder of
> the cases; however, I do believe this is not something to be handled
> at the packaging level; but it is a design issue with texinfo system
> as a whole.
I don't think packaging should solve these problems. I started this
thread with the intent to learn about problems and their possible
solutions based on Debian experience. I never meant to say that the
Debian packaging should have solved those problems, or that Debian are
responsible for them.
The only complaint I have about the specific (and the only) Debian
system which I sometimes use on fencepost.gnu.org is that C-h C-f is
broken there. I understand the reasons for post-processing Info
files, but unfortunately it breaks features which work in a simple
single-version installation for the sake of allowing multiple versions
for which I personally have no use. (I'd imagine that
fencepost.gnu.org is one machine where there should always be the
latest Emacs, and it alone ;-)
> the info system is trying to be a document management
> system for program documentation; perhaps it should borrow some
> versioning concepts from formal SGML document management systems?
Could you please elaborate on those concepts, and on how do they
pertain to Texinfo?
> Incidentally, what is supposed to be the general solution, ie,
> for non Debian systems? How are multiple versions of programs
> providing documentation in info formats handled?
They aren't; Info does not currently support different versions of the
same manual on the same machine. I started this discussion in the
hope that we could arrive at possible solutions, or directions to
solutions. (Karl Berry <address@hidden> is the GNU Texinfo
maintainer, in case you didn't know.)
- Re: Contributing to Emacs Development, (continued)
- Re: Contributing to Emacs Development, Manoj Srivastava, 2000/11/12
- Re: Contributing to Emacs Development, Kai Großjohann, 2000/11/12
- Re: Contributing to Emacs Development, Manoj Srivastava, 2000/11/12
- Re: Contributing to Emacs Development, Eli Zaretskii, 2000/11/12
- Re: Contributing to Emacs Development, Manoj Srivastava, 2000/11/12
- Re: Contributing to Emacs Development, Eli Zaretskii, 2000/11/12
- Re: Contributing to Emacs Development, srivasta, 2000/11/12
- Re: Contributing to Emacs Development,
Eli Zaretskii <=
- Re: Contributing to Emacs Development, Manoj Srivastava, 2000/11/12
Re: Contributing to Emacs Development, Kai Großjohann, 2000/11/11