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Re: Display of cross references to other manuals


From: Eli Zaretskii
Subject: Re: Display of cross references to other manuals
Date: 15 Mar 2004 08:26:55 +0200

> Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 15:32:15 -0600 (CST)
> From: Luc Teirlinck <address@hidden>
> 
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
>    > It does not indicate that this is a reference to the Emacs _manual_.
> 
>    It doesn't need to.  This thread started when Richard said that "See
>    Overview" looks bad.
> 
> Unless I completely misunderstood, that was because it did not make
> clear that it was a reference to the `cl' manual.

Richard did say that, but my interpretation of what he said was as
above.

If you understand it differently, please explain what is so wrong
with "See Overview".  Why is it important for the user to realize
that it points to a different manual?  Why cannot we think about all
the manuals as a single logical document, for that matter?

>    > There should be no need to point out a third time in the second
>    > argument that this is a reference to the Emacs manual.
> 
>    The Texinfo language doesn't leave us a choice, I'm afraid: it doesn't
>    specify any dependencies between the arguments.
> 
> We might again not be talking about the same thing, but to me
> `(texinfo)Cross Reference Parts', `(texinfo)Four and Five Arguments'
> and other places in the Texinfo manual, clearly define the meaning of
> the arguments.

We _are_ talking about different things.  I understood your saying
that there should be no need to name the Emacs manual more than once
as meaning that we already say that in another argument to @xref.  To
that I replied that Texinfo forces us to state the fact that another
manual is being referenced more than once, since some of the arguments
are used by certain output formats, while others are used by other
output formats, and there's no way to tell makeinfo ``look, I'm
mentioning a separate Info file, so please understand that another
manual is being referenced and DTRT.''

In other words, an xref like

  @xref{Syntax Tables,,Syntax Tables,elisp,The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual}

we are forced say both "elisp" in the 4th argument and "The Emacs
Lisp Reference Manual" in the 5th, although both of them say that
another manual is being referenced.

>    I believe we already talked about turning off Info-hide-note-references
>    by default.  Was that done?  (I cannot check where I'm typing this.)
> 
> No.  We talked about it, but unless Richard contradicts me, we failed
> to convince Richard.

I was under an impression that Richard agreed, or at least didn't
object.  Karl clearly thinks turning it off is a Good Thing.  Richard,
could you please state your position on this?





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