Re: easy install and man-like behavior

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Stefan Monnier" <address@hidden>
> Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 11:39:58 -0500
> 
> - `cp foo.info /usr/local/info; info foo' should work.
>   This means that `info foo' should find `foo' even if it's not in any
>   `dir' file

This is on my todo, but it is far from easy; various non-obvious
design decisions need to be made.  For example, what do you do if the
user types "info foo,bar,baz"?  Another example: with "info foo", do
you first try to look `foo' as a menu entry and then as a file, or the
other way around?

> - `info libc scanf' should find the scanf entry in the index rather
>   than complain that there is no menu entry for `scanf' in the toplevel
>   of the `libc' manpage.

Why only in the index?  What about manuals which don't have indices?
What about manuals which have two or more nodes all beginning with
"scanf"?

These all questions that need to be discussed and decided before
coding this.  (Coding any decision is actually not hard, I think.)

Info is much more versatile, powerful, and feature-rich than man
pages.  So it is not easy to copy behavior from one to the other.
Which doesn't mean we shouldn't try, just that one shouldn't assume
it's easy and doesn't get done because Texinfo maintainers are lazy.

> - A well-installed system should automatically update the dir files
>   from a cron job, so that `cp foo.info /usr/local/info' is *really* all it
>   takes to install an info document.
>   This can be done right now, but I think that the distribution of texinfo
>   should come with a sample such cron-script and should advertise it
>   so that it seems natural to do it for someone who never even thought
>   about it (as opposed to just making it possible/easy for someone who's
>   been waiting for it).

Can you write such a script?  I'm sure it will be gratefully
accepted.

> - along the same lines, the cron job could even build the info files
>   from texinfo files (like catman does for nroff->ascii), so that
>   `cp foo.texi /usr/local/doc' is all it takes to install a documentation

What do you do with errors reported by makeinfo during a cron job?