Subject: bug#75638: [PATCH] Include various GNU manuals in info-url-alist

From: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2025 17:56:15 -0600

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

>> Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2025 04:45:50 +0200
>> From:  Björn Bidar via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs,
>>  the Swiss army knife of text editors" <[email-masked]>
>>
>> The patch adds various GNU manuals to the default value of
>> Info-url-alist.
>> I scanned https://www.gnu.org/manual/ for the manuals which could go
>> into this list.
>
> The canonical place that associates Texinfo manuals with the URLs of
> their Web pages is the file util/htmlxref.cnf in the Texinfo source
> tree.
>
> I'm not sure I like this direction of extending Info-goto-node-web.
> It was designed to support the Emacs manuals.  Adding all this stuff
> to it takes us very far from that goal, and I'm not sure why would we
> want that.  Proliferating use of HTML docs on the Web (as opposed to
> local Info manuals) is not a goal I'd like us to pursue.
>
> This also makes us responsible for keeping this list up-to-date, which
> means we'd need to track the Texinfo's htmlxref.cnf file from now on.
> A slightly better change would be to add a command that will process
> htmlxref.cnf file (if it's installed in /usr/share/texinfo/) and
> augment the value of Info-url-alist with the URLs found there.
>
> I've added Stefan, Andrea and Juri to this discussion, and would be
> interested to hear their opinions on this change.

I tend to agree with Eli.

Now, I do think it's occasionally useful to be able to copy manuals to
share the link online, with non-Emacs colleagues, etc.  However, our own
manuals is one thing, but this introduces a large number of links that
will need to be checked, and kept current.

We already have tons and tons on our plate, and I'm reluctant to accept
more without solid reasons.  A minor convenience command like this one
doesn't strike me as such a reason.

It seems to me that if a database like this is to be provided, it would
perhaps be better if it was provided by the Texinfo people, behind an
interface along the lines of

    info --get-url "(emacs) Top"

Then we could build on top of that.  Perhaps this should be taken to the
Texinfo people?

Meanwhile, this addition (which, again, I think would be occasionally
useful) might be a better fit for GNU ELPA, assuming that Björn or
someone else agrees to maintain it.