Re: Groff macro to make .UR and .UE links clickable in PDF?

[Raf Czlonka]

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 07:27:58PM BST, Steve Izma wrote:
> 
> I find the whole idea of typesetting URLs in printed matter to be
> full of contradictions, but this is mostly on account of how
> contemporary Web frameworks construct URLs for dynamic pages and
> need all sorts of variables set in the posted URL. If Web sites
> were set up with mostly static pages in a normally organized
> filesystem hierarchy, URLs would be simpler and more likely human
> readable. As it is, no one is going to retype a URL that's longer
> than a few words from a printed page. From an online PDF, the URL
> shouldn't actually be typeset, I'd argue, but hidden in the link.
> 
> Anyway, my strategies for typesetting for a printed document:
> 
> - test the URL iteratively by removing as much as possible from
>   the end of the URL until you have the minimum number of
>   characters for getting to the page; usually this means removing
>   all the set variables;
> - if the resulting URL is longer than the output line length,
>   break the line and begin the URL on the next line
> - there are well-established rules for breaking a URL, which
>   include: never add a hyphen to show a break; break the line
>   such that the beginning of the next line looks like a
>   continuation of the URL, e.g., with a slash;
> - don't set the URL at all in the body of the text but use a
>   footnote or endnote marker and set the URL in the footnote or
>   endnote, since these are usually set in a smaller point size
>   and gives you more flexibility for fitting on lines; if a text
>   contains a lot of URLS, then set the notes as endnotes in a
>   longer line length, if possible;
> - some publishers use a style that ignores any part of the URL
>   other than the site location; they expect that once the reader
>   gets to the Web site, they can use the site's search mechanism
>   for finding the appropriate material;
> - since URLs are notoriously short-lived, encourage authors not
>   to use them at all but to cite printed material rather than
>   online material, or give complete bibliographic information
>   about the citation and a short reference to the home page of
>   the site.
> 
> One of the key issues is that a printed work is very likely to
> outlast the accuracy of a URL, so don't diminish the usefulness
> of a printed work but relying on URLs.
> 

Hi Steve at al.,

My £0.02, and a first post here :^)

A quick comment - somewhat related to the matter at hand.

Some of the above are covered by URL scheme guidelines such as
Clean URL[0]. Other can be remedied by concepts such as PURL[1].
None of it is panacea but good place to start, IMHO.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_URL
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_uniform_resource_locator

Regards,

Raf