Re: @dircategory (Re: Translating Emacs manuals is of strategic importance)

[Jean-Christophe Helary]

> On Jan 6, 2024, at 22:05, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

>> Supposedly, the user has installed the manual independently and knows
>> that there will be limitations. Just like all web sites have default 404
>> pages and some have redirection, the error does not have to read like
>> a punishment.
> 
> It is an annoyance.  gettext shows the original English message if
> there's no translation, and I think we should try doing the same in
> Info.

Ok. Fair enough.

>> Btw, does your comment indicate that you are currently not strongly
>> opposed to translating the node names?
> 
> I'm not opposed, but I tend to think we shouldn't translate them until
> Texinfo developers figure out how to handle these cases.

Ok. I guess it's also a matter of how much a manual is linked to from 
other manuals.


Thinking out loud here, but @node currently requires the node-name 
argument and has next/preious/up optional argument. It seems to me that 
most of the issues would be fixed by adding a fifth argument that acts 
like the cross-references' second argument (online-label). That way, 
node-name can stay as it is and act as the pointer but is displayed as 
"online-label", which is the translated part.

Same for the cross-references, if we generalize the use of 2 or 3 
arguments.