Re: [htmlxref.cnf] Please update link to the Groff manual

[Thérèse Godefroy]

Le 02/10/2023 à 21:37, Gavin Smith a écrit :
> On Sun, Oct 01, 2023 at 06:53:30PM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > So while changing the name of the directory back to html_node will fix
> > some broken link problems, it won't fix them all, and it won't be robust
> > in the face of future development.  I'm fairly neutral on the
> > "html_node" vs. "groff.html.node" naming issue, but I'm downright
> > _opposed_ to limiting my (or future contributors') flexibility in
> > updating, expanding, reducing, or otherwise mutating the node names of
> > the groff Texinfo manual.  Those shackles are much too tight.
> >
> > I don't want to go to the GNU site admins with requests to set up
> > unmaintainable-in-CVS symbolic links (or HTTP redirects in the web
> > server, whatever they think best) to resurrect some dead links until
> > we've decided this issue.  So here's what I propose.
>
> You do not need to ask GNU site admins to set up redirects for you.
> You can do it with the @anchor command in Texinfo.  From Info node
> "(texinfo)@anchor":
>
>                               ... when you delete or rename a node, it is
>    usually a good idea to define an ‘@anchor’ with the old name.  That way,
>    any links to the old node, whether from other Texinfo manuals or general
>    web pages, keep working.
>
> https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/_0040anchor.html
>  

There are other ways to redirect the html_node directory without any
help from sysadmins or webmasters.

* Create an .htaccess file, for example in the manual directory:

    RedirectMatch "html_node((/.*)?)$" 
/software/groff/manual/groff.html.node$1

The URL is redirected to something like this:
https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/manual/groff.html.node/*.html


* Add a line to the existing .symlinks file at the root of the groff 
directory:

    manual/groff.html.node manual/html_node

This symlink is processed into a rewrite directive:
RewriteRule ^/savannah-checkouts/gnu/groff/manual/html_node((/.*)?)$ \
  /savannah-checkouts/gnu/groff/manual/groff.html.node$1 [R=302,L]

I think the symlink method is not as clean as .htaccess because it
replaces the standard path (gnu.org/software/groff/manual/...) with the
actual location of the manual, possibly confusing visitors:
https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/groff/manual/groff.html.node/*.html