On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 10:58 AM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 10:18 AM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>>>> I don't think there are a lto of people who use dead tree editions anymore,
>>>> but they certainly do exist. A lot of people use the PDFs though,
>>>> particularly for offline reading or loading them in ebook readers. So it
>>>> still has to be workable there.
>
>>> PDFs do have hyperlinks, so that in itself isn't an argument for keeping
>>> the dead-tree-friendly approach. However, I've noticed some variation
>>> among tools in whether a PDF hyperlink is visibly distinct, or whether
>>> you have to mouse over it to find out that it would take you somewhere.
>>> Not sure if that's enough of a usability fail to argue for keeping the
>>> old way.
>
>> Personally, I wouldn't sweat it.
>
> Um ... are you expressing an opinion on the question at hand (ie, whether
> to continue using "see section m.n"-type cross-references), and if so
> in which direction?
Not exactly. I'm saying that, in deciding that underlying question,
we should assume that PDF readers will do something sensible with
links. I think most do, and those that don't will presumably
eventually be fixed so that they do. I might revise that opinion if
several people show up and say "I use PDF reader X and it displays
links in a dumb way and always will but I love it anyway", though.
Personally, I think that if the doc toolchain changeover changed the
way xrefs render - and it seems that it did - that's a bug that ought
to be fixed, or the whole thing should be reverted. We have no
agreement on that change, and a lot of existing markup that was
written with the old way in mind. Or at least Peter ought to put some
work into reviewing existing usages and cleaning up things that don't
look right any more. I don't think "(see Section 10.20, Blah Blah)"
is entirely horrible compared to "(see Section 10.20)" but there are
lots of place that use other phrasing, like "This is further described
in Section 10.20, which also explains how to frob your wug." and if
those places now read "This is further described in Section 10.20,
Using Wug Frobbing, which also explains how to frob your wug.", that's
not so good.
--
Robert Haas
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