Re: @ref{} adds ( ) in HTML

[Karl Berry]

Hi Han-Wen,

    only present in the HTML document

BTW, wouldn't these links be useful in Info, PDF, potentially XML, etc.?
(I can see they should be omitted in DVI.)

    We used to use @uref{} for linking these pages, but unfortunately,
    encoded node names (eg. when there are spaces in the node name) make
    that difficult. 
    
You had to handle encoded names before.  The encoding was different (and
less regular), that's all.  Use _0020 instead of + for spaces, and you
can go back to @uref if you want.  (Not that I'd necessarily recommend it.)

    Now we use @ref{}, but that inserts inserts (filename) after the
    URL. This makes makes our sentences rather painful to read,

I can see it's a problem, but I don't think it's right to just always
omit the filename.  After all, @ref is used in other documents, where
the fact that the link is in another document can be useful/important.
Although maybe not in HTML output.  Hmm.

The other alternative I can think of is to make a new command, or add
another argument to @ref, or maybe add a special syntax to the filename
in @ref, like @ref{node,,!lilypond-internals,whatever}, where the !
would mean to omit the filename.

I can't say any of those are especially appealing to me.
I'll think about it for a day or two.  If you have any other ideas,
don't be shy :).

Thanks,
karl