Re: [help-texinfo] 'makeinfo --html --split=chapter' splits at Texinfo node boundaries, not chapters

[Robert Weiner]

On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 2:23 PM, Gavin Smith <address@hidden> wrote:

> The external manuals then link to constant
> node names but these always point into the index.html file which redirects
> them to the specific chapter node entries.

I doubt that a web page that can redirect to multiple other web pages
is possible. (Note that we're talking about automatic redirection by a
web browser here, not redirection by clicking a link.)

​Yes, apparently this would require a small amount of _javascript_ to do properly, so it is not an option as we are limited to HTML.

​

 

Even if it
were, it seems that you are proposing to change how links between
Texinfo manuals are generated for the HTML output.

​The points I would like to make that may be relevant to future Texinfo releases:

1. Texinfo has an option to split what would be a single HTML file into multiple files and one such option is by chapter.  This makes a user think that the output will be essentially one HTML file per chapter.  Since this is not what happens, there should be some clear documentation explaining what will happen, both in the command-line help and in the manual.  I don't know if any of this exists but I guess that some more is needed and that this could be much more user-friendly as a result.

2. If the generated HTML is put under version control because it is distributed with a package, it can become pretty unwieldy to deal with one file per node for larger manuals.

Thanks for explaining what was happening here.  You have likely implemented it well given the lack of redirection within an HTML link by itself but the result is rather unexpected and thus my suggestion of additional documentation.

Bob