An idea I've been mulling: Currently, we handle changes in node structure by generating extra stub pages that redirect to the correct location. This works, but it's a bit clunky. For one thing, it doesn't update the location bar (though that could be fixed). Worse, it highlights a two-level name hierarchy FILENAME.html#FRAGMENT that depends on the splitting mode.
Instead, I suggest that the primary and visible name for every node and anchor use the fragment names (the part after the '#'). For example, the Keys chapter in the Emacs manual would still be in the file Keys.html, and you can still browse to "https://whatever/emacs/Keys.html";. However, the "perma-link" would be "https://whatever/emacs#Keys";, and that is what would show in the location bar. Currently, 'Keys" is a section, but the perma-link would remain "emacs#Keys" regardless of whether it is changed to a chapter or subsection, or of the splitting mode. Even if the section is renamed, "emacs#Keys" would work as long as an @anchor with the old name is added. Implementing this would be trivial in info.js - it already does this for file: URLs. That is assuming that info.js can map the fragment name to the correct file. Currently, this is done by looking in the "contents" element in the initial index.html. To handle other anchors (not in the contents) I propose texti2any can add them to the contents as invisible element. Perhaps: <span id="toc-Using-Foo" data-location="Foo.html#Using-Foo" data-toc="subheading" data-title="Using Foo"/> Note this would also help with the issue discussed in the "control over sectioning and splitting" thread, since info.js could optionally put subheading (for example) in the side-bar. An optional-but-nice refinement: When scrolling in a page, update the location bar *and* the side-bar. Note this doesn't have to be something we force on users: We can still generate the extra stub files, and we can make it a preference in info.js whether to prefer the emacs#Keys style in the location bar. A related change is that we should change how info node/anchor names are mapped into URLs to use standard %-encoding. This would make URL cleaner and more readable. For continuity, we could map space to '-', '-' to '%45', and other characters as in standard percent-encoding. An initial '-' could be used for texinfo-internal ids such as the "-toc-foo" or "-def-printf". (I've suggested this before, I'm pretty sure, but I think it makes sense to co-ordinate these changes, at least for a specific manual.) -- --Per Bothner p...@bothner.com http://per.bothner.com/
