Re: Navigation, was Re: Idea : common dir and tree

[Stein Gjoen <sgjoen@mail.nyx.net>]

Greg Ferguson wrote:
> On Jul 26,  2:49pm, Stein Gjoen wrote:
> > Subject: Re: Navigation, was Re: Idea : common dir and tree
> > Guylhem Aznar wrote:
> > ...
> > > Would you have time to sum up the current agreed propositions,
> > > including dir. tree?
> >
> > I'll try:
> >
> >             Proposal v1.0
[snip]

> Some questions/comments:
> 
> - With many potential files/HOWTOs, these additional sub-directories
>   (PDF, text, etc) will be virtually unnoticed. We need to provide
>   pointers to the sub-directories within the index.html files.

Agreed. We might do it
 - logically by listing each format for each HOWTO, with links that
  point to the relevant sub directory
 - structurally by having pointers straight to each sub directory for
  those of us who like to browse more manually.
I'd like to see both but this is in the end a web design issue
rather than a file system layout issue.

> - Will we utilize the single-page HOWTOs or the multi-page HOWTOs?

Personally I don't like to page down huge numbers of short pages.
How about making small HOWTOs (less then say 10 pages) into single
files using --split=0 while the bigger HOWTOs remain splitted?

> - What about HOWTOs that currently are contained in their own
>   sub-directory? We need to consider that (all DocBook-authored
>   HOWTOs are like that).

I don't know how these work. Do they have to be in sub directories?
If so that would have to be sub directories below HTML/ but it
does make it harder to maintain the index.html files.

> - Need to provide a commonly-shared image directory, such as what
>   we have now on www.linuxdoc.org (for call-outs, etc). Should be
>   at the same level as the other sub-dirs (unless we munge the
>   HTML to convert links/references).

Sorry, I don't quite understand this.

> - I can get you a file-count if need be (I need to know if the single
>   or multi-page variants will be used).
> 
> >          text/       - same HOWTOS but as plain text
> > ...
> >          PDF/        - same HOWTOS but as PDF
> > ...
> >          PostScript/
> > ...
> >          SGML/
> 
> - Contains gzipped tar files or exploded (SGML) text + graphics files
>   for each HOWTO? Again, possibly in their own sub-dirs.

If people install these files on their hard disk it is probably
because they have the capacity and the need in which case I feel
we can leave the files untarred and uncompressed.

If we are to make an LDP CD-ROM I feel we should have the files
uncompressed there since we then have all the space we need.

> - Do we need a split for linuxdoc v. docbook (?):
> 
>            SGML/
>                 docbook/
>                 linuxdoc/

I had hoped we didn't need that. The first few lines of each file
identifies the DTD anyway.

> > ...
> >          HTML/
> > ...
> 
> - Is it just me, or is anyone else annoyed by upper/mixed-case? :-)
>   I'd personally like to see lower-case used for all the sub-dir names,
>   but that's simply a personal preference.

Normally I have mixed feelings about it but in this case I favour
starting the main sub directories with a capital letter so they
appear at the top of a directory listing. Perhaps text/ should
then rather be Text/ to keep in the same style.

The HOWTO/ directory will probably be full of HTML files so
we should make the contents sub directories visible.

> - What goes in the 'HTML' directory, given that all HTML HOWTOs will
>   be in /usr/share/HOWTO ? Is it still necessary?

I might have misunderstood but I got the impression the majority
wanted HTML HOWTOs in HTML/ and I guess it can be an advantage to
keep the root clean as it will hold a lot of navigational files.

> >        GUIDES/       - the Guides in HTML format
> 
> - Again, a decision on upper/lower/mixed case..perhaps:
>   HOWTO, FAQ, guides, etc. Again, my personal preference.
> 
> > Contents:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > The index.html marked with (*) is based on the main page you see
> > when you browse http://www.LinuxDoc.org/ with some minor exceptions:
> >  - the links from that page point to files on disk using relative
> > file:// URLs. Remember many do not have online access.
> 
> All links on www.linuxdoc.org are currently relative (and work
> in a local/non-web-server environment). We needed to have it this
> way for our mirror sites.

That probably makes things a bit easier. We will still need some
kind of script to turn http:// into file:// and add the extra links.
I any case I suspect we are going to need a fair bit of scripts
to maintain and produce all this.

> >  - added links that point to the corresponding area at LinuxDoc.org
> >   in order to get the latest copy for those who are online.
> >
> > Example: the link looks like "Guides [web]"
> > where Guides points to file://guides.html
> > and   [web]  points to http://www.linuxdoc.org/guides.html
> 
> Very good idea.
> 
> > [...]
> > (PS: I am going on a 3 week holiday starting this weekend and I
> > am unlikely to be reachable over the net during this period. The
> > entry to LWN has been submitted and might make it for this weeks
> > issue).
> 
> I hate to switch gears, but was there ever any resolution or
> follow-up on the c.o.l.a posting problem?

Sadly no results yet. There is a line about this problem in the
LWN entry (which didn't appear in this weeks issue, hopefully
next week) that I hope will provoke a response. If that doesn't
work I'll send a request and notice to c.o.l.announce to inform
about the lacklustre performance of the alleged moderator.

Regards,
   Stein Gjoen


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