On Sun, Feb 02, 2025 at 06:21:10PM +0000, Werner LEMBERG wrote: > > > The problem with changing the output for a cross-reference to > > anchors is that some manuals may be depending on the existing > > output, with the anchor names used in HTML output. So I think we > > should change the output in DVI/PDF instead to match the current > > HTML output, and use the anchor names in the output text. > > Yes, exactly. > > > This would mean that the xrefautomaticsectiontitle setting would not > > have an effect on cross-references to anchors. > > This would be fine with me. However, it would be > backward-incompatible, thus my suggestion of a new option.
Well, at present the HTML and PDF output does different things with this option, for no good reason. The default is "on" for HTML and "off" for PDF, but that isn't even enough to explain it, as they do different things with xrefs to anchors. I've made the changes already for texinfo.tex (in version 2025-02-03.17). A new option would be mainly for people to get the old PDF output back again, which we could consider. We'd have to decide whether the option would work exactly like xrefautomaticsectiontitle but affecting anchor targets only (simple on/off setting), or if @*heading commands should be considered somehow. I'm inclined to say that we should not make an option to use @*heading commands as targets, as this goes against the simple definition of these commands as producing a section heading, but nothing else.
