Re: [Scrollkeeper-devel] Simple URI's

[Laszlo K. <las...@su...>]

Dan Mueth wrote:
> 
> GNOME uses a "gnome-help" URI scheme.  So if you type
> "gnome-help:gnumeric", it looks in
> $prefix/share/gnome/help/gnumeric/<locale>/ and looks for the doc under
> the name gnumeric.sgml or else index.html.  It is a very convenient way to
> find a manual.  It also allows for cross-referencing of documents very
> simply since any document you write knows that "gnome-help:gnumeric" will
> point to the Gnumeric manual regardless of where things are installed (eg.
> under /usr or /opt or ...).
> 
> The problem with this is:
> 1) other help browsers have to understand how to handle the
> "gnome-help" URI scheme
> 2) presumably other desktops will introduce more URI schemes
> 3) many docs won't be addressable at all this way unless scrollkeeper
> provides a mechanism.
> 
> So probably what we want is to introduce a scheme which passes the
> identifier (what is the right term here?) to scrollkeeper which can return
> the path.  So for example, one would use: "sk-help:modem-HOWTO".  It
> would have to find the doc (and select from any available versions,
> languages, formats) and then display it.  This would be *very* useful IMO,
> both for users as well as for cross-referencing between documents.
> 
> A couple issues which pop up:
> 
> 1) Selecting the right doc.  We could have a default setting for language
> (just use the current locale), formats (perhaps in /etc/sk.conf we list in
> order of preference), and versions (show the biggest version number).
> 
> 2) Mapping the names.  The OMF file should specify the name by which the
> document should be referred.  This seems to require yet another OMF
> attribute to be created, perhaps IDENTIFIER.URINAME?  We will not have
> complete uniqueness here.  However ideally we will have a 1-1
> correspondence between NUID's and URINAME's.  We could keep a database on
> the web so people can register names and find out if a name is taken.
> This creates even more administrative overhead, but I think it is well
> worth the trouble it would take to set up a simple php/mysql site on
> SourceForge.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Dan
> 

I think it is a good idea. The Gnome scheme definitely look simple,
something similar would be useful. We just need to figure out how
feasible it is to implement this with Scrollkeeper.

Laszlo