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authorNicholas D Steeves <nsteeves@gmail.com>2018-09-21 00:13:01 -0400
committerNicholas D Steeves <nsteeves@gmail.com>2018-09-21 00:13:01 -0400
commitcb044808c708f3359542dec387dc44baa42fb220 (patch)
treea782e5233c7b214b95f53891b23e2303fc1f5e93
parentd404b8ddf8e19fa05c5eb6950277edec19f4622f (diff)
dh_elpa.in: add new section "A word on info pages..."
-rwxr-xr-xdh_elpa.in42
1 files changed, 42 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/dh_elpa.in b/dh_elpa.in
index df0cbe7..6584ab5 100755
--- a/dh_elpa.in
+++ b/dh_elpa.in
@@ -475,4 +475,46 @@ the package autoloads file. Changing the behaviour of the package (as
opposed to making it work) should in most cases happen in upstreamed
patches.
+=head2 A word on info pages in dh_elpa packages
+
+While info pages can be installed to the main INFOPATH in
+/usr/share/info using B<dh_installinfo>, this is not recommended. If
+the addon is also bundled with Emacs this method will, at times,
+conflict with the file path of a page provided by GNU Emacs.
+Conflicts are primarily with the B<emacs-common-non-dfsg> package.
+More importantly, installing files outside of the B<dh-elpa>-managed
+directory /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/elpa-src/package-version violates
+the ELPA package specification. This specification requires that the
+contents of an ELPA package are contained within a single directory,
+and that this directory is named package-version; subdirectories
+within package-version are permitted I<[1]>.
+
+Thus, the following method is recommended: Add the path of
+C<package.info>, relative to source-package-dir to
+debian/[S<I<package.>>]elpa. Emacs' info viewer is able to find info
+pages installed in this way because C<package.el> updates
+C<Info-directory-list> to include each addon I<[2]>. At present the
+only downside is that these info pages will be inaccessible using the
+standalone B<info> viewer, eg: bugs such as I<#725408> "org-mode 8
+info does not show up in info index".
+
+This issue can be fixed upstream in the standalone B<info> viewer if
+the ability to parse installed ELPA packages is added to B<info>.
+Alternatively, this issue can be resolved by customising C<INFOPATH>
+I<[2]>. eg: B<dh-elpa> could hypothetically be extended using a
+method similar to C</etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh> for each
+elpa-package that installs an info page. GNU Emacs info-mode and the
+standalone B<info> viewer would then use C<INFOPATH> to resolve the
+correct location of an info page.
+
+= item References:
+
+[1] For more information see section "Multi-file Packages" in the GNU
+Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, available online or from the non-free
+package emacs-common-non-dfsg C<qinfo "(elisp) Multi-file Packages">.
+
+[2] For more information see section "Other Info Directories" in the
+GNU Texinfo Manual, available online or from the non-free package
+texinfo-doc-nonfree C<info "(texinfo) Other Info Directories">.
+
=back