From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-11-24 09:07:25
Some of the documentation that used to live within the boost-root/tools
directory sub-tree has been moved to the
website-root\public_html\beta\development directory.
That creates a usability problem because
boost-root/tools/tool-name/index.html is no longer present. When working
with these tools, you are usually using either the command line or a GUI
directory tree browser, not a web browser. Thus it is now a real pain in
the anatomy to locate the docs since aren't right there where you are
working. Worse yet, you may fail to realize there *are* any docs, and
never look for them at all.
In the boost-root/libs directory tree, we solve this same problem by
providing an index.html file for each library that automatically
redirects to wherever the docs for the library actually live. Because
that is generally a relative link, it finds either the web version or
the version within the local disk tree, depending on whether you are
browsing the web or a local working copy. This is expected behavior, and
works very well in practice. If you are using a working copy, you get
the docs as of that working copy. If you are looking at the web site,
you get the docs matching the web site release.
Perhaps we can solve the problem for tools in the same way. Each tool
could have an index.html file that redirects to the actual docs
location. With the docs now in a sub-tree that is not within the
boost-root tree, the redirection requires a bit of logic:
If index.html is a local working copy, redirect to beta.boost.org/...
otherwise redirect to www.boost.org/...
Is this the best solution? Is Javascript capable of doing that?
--Beman