Re: Contributing to Emacs Development

[Miles Bader]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but using static links via the
alternatives mechanism doesn't seem as if it will solve the original
problem Eli reported.

The thing is, say you start a *non-default* emacs (say `emacs19', when
/usr/bin/emacs points (indirectly) to `emacs20'), and then use `C-h C-f'
to jump to the info page on a command.

Emacs will try to open the info file "emacs".

But if /usr/share/info/emacs is symlinked (indirectly) to the info file
`.../emacs20', which I think is what you said will happen using
alternatives, then the user will get the info page for the command he
looked up *in the emacs20 manual*.  But he's running emacs19.... so the
documentation he gets is for the wrong version.

It seems as if it's necessary to either:

  1) Give each version of emacs its own info directory, which is first
     on the search path, and make sure that all info files that are
     emacs-version-dependent get put into this directory.  [I think this
     will work with non-emacs info readers, because they never have this
     implicit dependency on the `currently running emacs version', so
     static links will be ok for them]

  2) Change the way emacs gets these fixed info file names to look up
     (for instance, "emacs" when looking up via `C-h C-f'), via some
     mechanism in emacs.  This might work too, but it seems a bit
     trickier -- for instance when the user opens the info reader in
     emacs, and looks at the top-level directory, if he types `m Emacs',
     he should get the manual for the version he's running, *not* for
     the default on the system.

Am I incorrect?  If so, could you explain in more details how these
cases work using your proposed setup?

Thanks,

-Miles