Re: Is any future development needed on 'dir' files?

[Gavin Smith]

On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 12:59:41AM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> This TODO entry seems to me to be still relevant.  But first it seems
> to me that the categories in util/dir-example do not match the categories
> in https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Category/All.
> And then when the categories are updated, someone needs to propose
> patches to change manuals as manual categories are still all over the
> place...

>From a brief look at that page there can be multiple categories for one
project.  For example at https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Burn these are

Categories
Audio:cd-burning
Audio:cd-copying
Interface:command-line
Programming-language:python
Runs-on:GNU/Linux

How exactly do we change that to a @dircategory recommendation?

> I propose to remove historical information and change it to two entries
> 
>   - update util/dir-example recommended categories based on the Free
>     Software Directory categories on a regular basis.
> 
>   - Monitor and improve the dir categories in existing manuals, checking
>     that the category they appear in the Info main menu follows
>     the Free Software Directory categories recorded in util/dir-example.  
> 
> Then there is the choice to put those entries to the "will not be implemented
> section" or not.  To me a way to think about is, if we add somebody
> willing to do that kind of work would we have better things to propose
> to do that this one?  The issue with that is that it needs to be redone
> every few years to match with the changes in the Free Software Directory
> categories and also to handle new manuals.
> 
> If this work is done only for the info dir, it is probably not worth it,
> although if someone volunteers why not.  But I think that this
> categorization should be done for all the formats that we want to use
> for a library of Texinfo manuals, to be able to organize all of them.
> So it is probably worth it, for instance for the HTML project:
> 
>  One suggestion is to have a directory of HTML manuals stored, akin to the
>  "dir" file in the Info system.  Browser software could use this directory
>  to locate manuals.

Good point.  I've edited the Texinfo manual to separate the documentation
of @dircategory and make it more prominent.

> 
> I personnally do not understand what this is about, I would suggest
> removing this entry.

Okay.