Re: FAQ format

[Rik]

>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Subject:
> FAQ format
> From:
> "John W. Eaton" <address@hidden>
> Date:
> Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:12:11 -0400
> To:
> octave maintainers mailing list <address@hidden>
>
> To:
> octave maintainers mailing list <address@hidden>
>
>
> I originally wrote the FAQ using Texinfo because I thought it would be
> useful to have the output in several different formats.  But now I'm
> having some difficulty with menus in the Texinfo document, and I'm
> wondering whether it is worth figthing this problems.
>
> The trouble is that I'd like to use questions as node/section names,
> but for long questions used as node names, makeinfo complains about
> references to nonexistent nodes, even though they are present.  It
> might be possible to fix makeinfo, but   Maybe it would be better to
> just keep the FAQ as a simple plain text document?
>   
I tend to agree with Søren that whatever works is probably good enough
for the FAQ. 

One suggestion, it sounds like there is an internal limit on the number
of characters used in a menu name/node identifier.  One way around that
would be to use the long form of the menu entry command.  According to
the Texinfo documentation a menu has the form:
* MENU-ENTRY-NAME: NODE-NAME.   DESCRIPTION

Most of the time this is abbreviated to
* MENU_ENTRY-NAME::
where the node and the menu name are the same.

You might try
* My extravagantly long question about life, the universe, and
everything?: short_node_name

The destination link would have to be called short_node_name but it
might work around your issue.

--Rik