Re: Problems with "info autoconf" and similar

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello,

On Thu, Jan 11, 2007 at 10:58:17PM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > 1) the dir items named "foo Invocation" would be used only if no
> > other item matches, unless --usage was given.
> 
> This is limited to the example you saw.  What about "Running FOO", or
> "Invoking FOO", or "FOO commandline options", or...
> 
> Take a look at the code inside the reader that implements the --usage
> option: it needs to jump through the hoops to intuit the name of the
> node, because there are so many different variants.

indeed, this is what I really had in mind: use this code, and nodes
suitable for `--usage' would be discriminated in normal invocations.

> > 2) if there is a "foo.info" file available in the info path, it would
> > be preferred to what is specified in the dir file.
> 
> That would be breaking back compatibility too harshly, I think.

I'm afraid you are right.

> On balance, I think it's much easier if you simply edit your DIR file
> to do what you want.

Not ``my DIR file''.  The problem is that several users reported
problems with Autoconf documentation, and one topic was:
  ``I tried "info autoconf" but that displayed an unusable man page''

They just somehow hoped that `info autoconf' would bring them to the
beginning of the Autoconf manual.
They were not happy when I told them they have to type `t' to get
there.

OK, I'll try to find a solution on a lower level (bug-autoconf or the
GNU/Linux distribution in question).

Thanks,
        Stepan