From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Documentation for "Clone Buffers" (corrected version) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:01:26 -0500 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200403181837.i2IIbUV23148@f7.net> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1079806191 23407 80.91.224.253 (20 Mar 2004 18:09:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 18:09:51 +0000 (UTC) Cc: juri@jurta.org, eliz@elta.co.il, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Sat Mar 20 19:09:47 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1B4kup-0004KJ-00 for ; Sat, 20 Mar 2004 19:09:47 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1B4kup-00017d-00 for ; Sat, 20 Mar 2004 19:09:47 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1B4krb-0002wx-EQ for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:06:27 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.30) id 1B4krM-0002v1-B1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:06:12 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.30) id 1B4kqo-0002lq-W9 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:06:10 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.164] (helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1B4kqo-0002lZ-Be for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:05:38 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.24) id 1B4kmk-00056i-2z; Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:01:26 -0500 Original-To: karl@freefriends.org (Karl Berry) In-reply-to: <200403181837.i2IIbUV23148@f7.net> (karl@freefriends.org) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.4 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:20646 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:20646 The underlying issue, to my knowledge, is that for info to be as convenient as man, it needs to have dir entries for every command, every function, etc. I think the command names should be entries in an index, rather than entries in the info directory. It's obviously not useful for the user to have to browse through a dir node with 1700 entries from glibc. I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you envisioning the idea that the libc manual could create an entry in the info dir for each library function? I see no reason to put them in the info directory; it's better to put them in an index, which is where they are already. However I am puzzled that you go on to speak of this as if it were already fact: On the other hand, I can't exactly call it a "bug" in the glibc manual, it's trying to do the only thing available. What exactly are you saying is not a bug? What do you mean by "the only thing available"? What is that thing? Available for what? The only long-term solution I've been able to think of is to allow subnodes of (dir) and have the info readers look through the subnodes when asked for a given top-level name -- but not load or display the info in all the subnodes when showing the dir node itself. I think we need commands that find specific index nodes and look up names in them. There would be one for commands, one for library functions, and so on. This is the same idea as the structure of sections of the unix manual, but we need not name them by numbers.