Re: On being web-friendly and why info must die

[Phillip Lord]

Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> writes:

>>> I don't.  Yes, I want it to be "as short as possible", but I also want
>>> it to work when passed to any random web-browser.
>>> So it pretty much has to look like "http://<hostname>/<somethingelse>".
>> Whatever it looks like, it has to lead to your locally installed copy
>> of the manual in question.
>
> That's right.  The specific <hostname> and <somethingelse> chosen should
> be known to the Info reader so it can redirect the request to the
> local copy.


All that is needed for this is to use permanent, never changing URLs at
the server.

http://www.gnu.org/emacs/24.4/top

Then, a locally installed Emacs needs a mapping file (or function), so
that this URL redirects to

/usr/share/info/emacs/24.4/top

Obviously, in the source format, this means that interlinks must NOT be
full URLs -- otherwise all of the doc will have to updated every
release.

This would also give the possibility to present multiple links. So, on
seeing a link like:

http://www.gnu.org/emacs/24.4/top

the info browser would by default redirect to the 24.4 documentation
(locally), but could also signal that a new version was available,
regardless of whether it was installed locally or not.

Phil