Re: [Scrollkeeper-devel] Simple URI's

[Nik C. <ni...@no...>]

[ Sorry for the delay in some of these, free time tends to come in
  discrete bursts for me ]

On Tue, Nov 28, 2000 at 01:47:29AM -0600, 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

Big problem.

> 2) presumably other desktops will introduce more URI schemes

Wouldn't suprise me.  Probably without thinking about what others have
been doing in this space as well.

> 3) many docs won't be addressable at all this way unless scrollkeeper
> provides a mechanism.

True.

You missed

 4) The inevitable clash between two documents that want to have the
    same simple name.

> 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.

Let the users use bookmarks.  On a network with multiple architectures,
does "modem-HOWTO" refer to the Linux, FreeBSD, or Solaris document?

If an individual user wants to create their own aliases for
documentation, they should probably be able to do so.  The user can then
have the burden of deciding which short name maps to which document, and
is in a much better position to know that they want "modem-HOWTO" to
point to the Solaris document.

N
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