Re: [Docutils-develop] [docutils:feature-requests] #91 Include directive path argument should support a configurable root.

[Karl O. P. <ko...@ka...>]

I guess the full development of my thoughts leads to this
observation (which might not be true because I'm not steeped
in Sphinx):

If "root path" declarations take absolute paths in config.py
then a single config.py is not (in the general
case) reusable in sphinx-build invocations which
use different "sourcedir" paths, because if the sourcedir
is different there's likely different image dirs/etc.

There seem to be multiple solutions.  

1) Allow absolute file system
paths, relative to the overall root of the system's filesystem
hierarchy, as values for the various "root path" declarations,
and have sphinx-build take new arguments, each of which
would set a "root path" value similar to the way "sourcedir"
works.  ("imageroot" "staticroot", etc.)

2) Have the values of the various "root path" declarations
be relative to a well-known filesystem path, like the directory
containing the config.py file.

3) Do nothing.  Different invocations of sphinx-build may
need to use different configuration files, each of which
would correspond with a different "sourcedir" value.
Perhaps there would be a common config file "included"
by each top-level config file, the top-level config file
being the one that sets the various "root paths".  But
this would be up to the Sphinx user to construct.

4) Do something else.  Magic that completely reworks the
expected sphinx directory structure, to not only accommodate
multiple sorts of root directories but also to naturally
and simply separate sphinx supplied files from user-supplied
files.  There would then magically be zero level of effort
involved in starting to use Sphinx in a way that cleanly
works with revision control and with multiple RST source
directories (each of which may be expected to produce
output formats which differ from each other, given that
various output formats sometimes require different image
file formats, etc.).  Huzzah!

Regards,

Karl <ko...@ka...>
Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
                 -- Robert A. Heinlein