From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: karl@freefriends.org (Karl Berry) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Info enhancements Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 20:20:17 -0500 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <200312070120.hB71KHb05115@f7.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1070760177 13445 80.91.224.253 (7 Dec 2003 01:22:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 01:22:57 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Sun Dec 07 02:22:55 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1ASndP-000509-00 for ; Sun, 07 Dec 2003 02:22:55 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1ASndP-0005NJ-00 for ; Sun, 07 Dec 2003 02:22:55 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1ASoZ6-0008OB-K3 for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2003 21:22:32 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1ASoYp-0008Nw-OW for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2003 21:22:15 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1ASoYJ-0007wv-23 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2003 21:22:14 -0500 Original-Received: from [209.61.216.22] (helo=f7.net) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1ASoYI-0007wU-Lg for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2003 21:21:42 -0500 Original-Received: (from karl@localhost) by f7.net (8.11.7-20030920/8.11.7) id hB71KHb05115; Sat, 6 Dec 2003 20:20:17 -0500 Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:18487 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:18487 Responding now to Luc's mail about @anchor in general. If anchors are actually preferred over node names, I would not say that anchors are "preferred" over names. Ultimately, there is a bias in Texinfo toward reasonably short nodes. When the nodes are short, subnode positioning does not matter. Thus, @anchor was not available in Texinfo for many years -- and thus was not used in most existing manuals, which predate the feature. On the other hand, anchors are there to be used, there's no reason to hesitate about it at this point. Or one might give some guidelines on _when_ to use @anchor. I agree. From this discussion, the answer forming in my mind is "when you have a long node, and want to go to an exact location within it". And I would also say "consider splitting such a long node into several subnodes" -- but I realize there are cases where that is not desirable. A reference would lead in a random way either to the top of the node or to the "correct place". If there were more anchors, users would simply get to the "correct" place more often. That's all to the good. You're right that naming conventions could distinguish, but I'm not sure that's completely the way to go either. An xref label like "file-coding-system-alist" seems perfectly reasonable to me; it is not apparent whether it is a node or an anchor, but as long as the user ends up at the description of file-coding-system-alist when they follow a reference, I don't think it matters. A couple of sentences in Help-Xref couldn't hurt. Thanks, k