[Scrollkeeper-devel] scrollkeeper problematic issues

[Ali A. <ali...@st...>]

hello,

please allow me to write a couple of lines related to scrollkeeper and the
issues i got by using it. before i go into details lemme introduce my system
here so you get a view for what i use it.

i am running a linux system here with openjade, latex, and a full docbook
support sgml-3.1, sgml-4.1, xml-4.1.2, dssl-1.76, xsl-1.50. i use all that
stuff to build the gnome 2 documentations and programming reference manuals.
the catalog files are mostly these that comes with the original packages (f=
rom
the correct webpages. no repacks, rebuilds, forks etc.). all the catalogs a=
re
beeing exported correctly so they can be found correctly. so far building
gnome 2 using these packages works perfectly.

now the part where scrollkeeper takes action is something that is really
troublesome. please let me explain the problems i have and i hope that some=
 of
you people could help solving these issues. either in a new scrollkeeper
version or right now as is.

i use scrollkeeper 0.3.8 (i know its a development version). but i detected
these issues in earlier versions too so i doubt that they will be solved any
soon, if i dont write a few lines to point to them.

1) i use scrollkeeper from source, compile it and install it (after libxml =
and
   libxsl got installed). the problems with it is why does it search for
   /etc/xml -> which is the same as xml-4.1.2 which is on the otherhand
   located in my /usr/share/sgml/sgml/xml-4.1.2 directory. ok i solved this
   issue by linking that directory to /etc/xml. i understand that people
   install their docbook packages into different places so finding the right
   path could be really problematic.

   i recommend adding a --path-to-xml-docbook=3D<path> to the configure scr=
ipt
   so i dont need to link to /etc/xml and i make sure that the rest of
   scrollkeeper get the right docbook i point to.

2) something that also follows from one version to another. i dont use
   /var/lib/scrollkeeper as localstatedir. i point my stuff to the same
   prefix as scrollkeeper gets installed (default is) /usr/local where i
   want my scrollkeeper to be installed. now if i do this.

   ./configure && make && make install

   then during configure the localstatedir wont be set correctly for the
   scrollkeeper datafiles and configure spits out
   $(prefix)/var/lib/scrollkeeper as it searchpath. the variable $prefix wa=
snt
   changed to /usr/local as it should default to. i need to explicitely do

   ./configure --prefix=3D/usr/local --localstatedir=3D/usr/local/var

   so configure show

   /usr/local/var/lib/scrollkeeper

   after configuration. oki so far i was able solving this issues too. but
   usually the configure script should take care if no --localstatedir was
   defined that it at least point to the real prefix default. which it
   currently doesnt do.

3) another issue also point 2) related. lets say i installed scrollkeeper i=
nto
   /usr/local/share and its database got installed to
   /usr/local/share/var/lib/scrollkeeper. then after i compile more gnome
   related packages, scrollkeeper doesnt use
   /usr/local/share/var/lib/scrollkeeper to store its stuff, it puts
   everything into a new directory named /usr/local/share/var/scrollkeeper.
   oki since i know this happeneing, i symlink the lib/scrollkeeper dir to
   ../scrollkeeper i know its poor but not the fault of the way i install
   things.

4) again this hits point 2) now after i did the /etc/xml symlink and
   configured scrollkeeper, make and make installed it. i am getting errors
   thrown out about not beeing able to connect to the net. or something that
   tells me that it cant grab some stuff from net. the first time in my life
   that i see some stuff grabbing some other stuff from net during
   installation.

   oki solution is to make sure networkaccess is present. but anyways there
   shouldnt be the need to have a newtwork connection to install something.

5) related to point 2) and 4) oki now the network access is present and make
   install throws out error messages about 'starttag not found' oki
   investigation into this tells me that scrollkeeper has problems with the
   the default catalogfile of xml-4.1.2. now i ask myself why does
   scrollkeeper have problems with parsing the default catalogfile ?

   even worser on earlier versions, why is it required to generate a new
   catalogfile so scrollkeeper understands it and even much more worse, why
   does scrollkeeper do this on its own and trash a correct original
   catalogfile ? i detected that my original xml catalogfile got overwritten
   by a new made catalogfile from a previous scrollkeeper installation. i d=
ont
   want to say that i got really pissed by this. not to mention that i figu=
red
   this one out really late.

now i dont want to sound offending or something but if i had a decission i
wouldnt use scrollkeeper at all unfortunately a lot of gnome packages requi=
res
it so i depend on it. i know that i will get answers like 'use a distro' use
final 'packages' or whatever but that are all workarounds and dont cover the
real problems.

i would be happy to get at least an answer to this. as it currently looks to
me. scrollkeeper needs a lot of TWEAKING because it doesnt work correctly o=
ut
of the box.

=2D-=20
Name....: Ali Akcaagac
Status..: Student Of Computer & Economic Science
E-Mail..: mailto:ali...@st...
WWW.....: http://www.fh-wilhelmshaven.de/~akcaagaa