Re: [h-e-w] Merging Win32 documentation with Emacs main docs

[David Vanderschel]

On Friday, July 14, "Eli Zaretskii" <address@hidden> wrote:

> From: David Vanderschel <address@hidden>
>> It has occurred to me that folks who contribute to the
>> Wiki should be encouraged to reference material in the
>> official manual and/or FAQ _whenever_ there is
>> relevant documentation in either.

>Yes.  In addition, if some important information is missing, I'd
>suggest to ask on emacs-devel why not add it to the manual or the
>FAQ.  That is, don't automatically add to the wiki something that you
>think should be in the bundled docs.

I think one of the appealing things about the Wiki is
that one can make an improvement in the documentation
happen NOW!  Furthermore, even if the original person
who suggests some new documentation does not get it
quite right, others will come along and fix it.  Going
through the official channels will introduce delay
that many folks are not willing to tolerate.  That is
why I conceived of some documentation upgrades as
occurring in two phases - with transition to the
official document only after there has been a little
while for the state of the Wiki to settle.  This
compromise exploits the dynamic capabilities of the
Wiki while maintaining the reviewed, authoritative
position of the official documents.  In this case, I
would not think of the process as involving a
"duplication" of effort.  The process is more like an
"iteration" approaching the final 'product'.

>> To facilitate this, it would be helpful if the current
>> FAQ could be accessed as HTML on the gnu.org site.

>The last released FAQ _is_ accessible, but I see no reason not to
>refer to the Info manual, since any Emacs user should already have
>them as part of the distribution.

My point is that there should be an HTML version on
the gnu.org site in order to support links into it at
the subsection level.  The currently accessible FAQ is
not so linkable (though the manual is).  The Wiki
cannot link to _my_ copies of the manual or the FAQ.
It could only reference my copies by node name.  That
would not be very elegant for the Wiki.

A copy of the FAQ or manual into which the Wiki can
link need not be at gnu.org, as it could be a mirror
of the official document.  But I was thinking that
linking to a copy at the gnu.org site would enhance
the authoritative status of material referenced from
the Wiki in this way.  Probably not a significant
issue.

Regards,
  David V.