>>>> "jsja" == John S J Anderson
<jacobs(a)xemacs.org> writes:
Hi John,
I certainly did not mean to offend anybody.
You brought in genpage and I can see its merits for the maintenance of
our website.
I have put genpage in its own directory and inported it on a vendor
branch. This should make upgrades to newer versions of genpage real
easy. We will just have to merge in my local modifications afterward.
My changes are minor and I will submit them to the author of genpage.
Do you know whether PHP would provide us with comparable
functionality?
I hope you will remain active will xemacs website development and
maintenance.
I will document in more detail how things work on sourceforge.
Refer to my previous articles on xemacs-webmaint and xemacs-beta for
now.
I have commented below.
Best regards,
Adrian
>>>> "APA" == Adrian Aichner
<aichner(a)ecf.teradyne.com> writes:
APA> I am concerned that using
APA> <base
href="http://www.xemacs.org/">
APA> in template.html (all page contents get wrapped into this
APA> template) is more a curse than a blessing.
jsja> [snip]
APA> AFAIK, "base href" is a feature to be used when web documents are
APA> sent off via e-mail, to provide a base for all relative links.
jsja> Not according to any HTML spec I've ever seen. If you can provide a
jsja> citation for that, I'd be pleased to see it. It _is_ a way to provide
jsja> a base for all relative links, but there's nothing about it being
jsja> specific for email, AFAIK. Like I said, I'd _really_ appreciate
jsja> knowing the source of this information.
The best I've been able to find quickly is this:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#h-12.4.1
APA> Using this feature as a means of website design is an error, I
APA> believe. It is the cause for all the broken links in
APA> "Architecting XEmacs".
jsja> Calling it an error is an error, IMNSHO. The reason for the
jsja> broken links in the Architecting section is because those
jsja> documents were prepared by a third party (someone paid by
jsja> Ben, IIRC), and never properly integrated into the web site.
s/an error/problematic/
Including a base href via the template.html into documents on various
directory hierarchy levels changes the meaning of relative links.
All relative links become relative to that one location, which defeats
modular, self-contained linking within a sub-directory.
I've been there, done that, and learned my lessons from that.
APA> I would like to get some feedback from yall, especially the ones
APA> who decided to use
APA> <base
href="http://xemacs.sourceforge.net/">
jsja> (Totally my decision, in case you hadn't got that yet.)
So I gathered :-) Again, I don't mean to offend you. Let's come to a
technical solution for the problems at hand.
APA> What was the motivation?
jsja> The reason for using <BASE> is so image links in the
jsja> template will work at all relative directory levels of the
jsja> site. Consider what would happen with the <IMG
jsja> SRC="Images/xemacs.gif"> when viewing
jsja> <
URL:http://www.xemacs.org/About/index.html> if that BASE
jsja> tag wasn't there.
I would use absoulte links like
<IMG SRC="/Images/xemacs.gif">
to access global features like images, and other shared resources.
It would be immediately obvious that this is a link rooted at the top
of the hierarchy.
Without base href relative links are relative, absolute links are
absolute. Isn't that a feature worth preserving?
jsja> Yes, there are other solutions possible. They all felt
jsja> kludge-y to me; while using the <BASE> tag felt relatively
jsja> clean.
Do you still think so?
jsja> john.
Best regards,
Adrian
jsja> --
jsja> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
jsja> John S Jacobs Anderson \
<URL:http://www.xemacs.org>
jsja> You'll have to pry my Emacs from my cold \ jacobs(a)xemacs.org
jsja> dead oversized control-pressing left pinky finger. -- Randal L. Schwartz