[pracjourn-forum] Re: Another newby question: Finding documentation

[Peter Flynn]

On Wed, 2005-05-11 at 15:22, Karl Berry wrote:
>     "Will there be a search button 
>     on CTAN that looks in the doc subdirectories of individual packages?"
> 
> I believe that problem is solved better by my first suggestion: have a
> search button for doc (pdf|html|dvi) files.  That way doc will be found
> even if the package upload is not TDS.  Sure, it could also return
> contents of package/doc directories if they exist, but that seems
> secondary to me.

I just revised the little script I have so that pdf/ps/doc/html/txt
files get separated out. 

> Regarding TDS uploads to CTAN in general -- most packages are so small
> it seems like total overkill to me for them to have the TDS structure.
> Personally, I cannot see the point in essentially duplicating the
> tree in reverse:
>   macros/latex/contrib/shadethm/
>                                tex/latex/shadethm/
>                                                   shadethm.sty
> instead of what there is now:
>   macros/latex/contrib/shadethm/
>                                shadethm.sty
> 
> For large packages, with files in many subtrees, then it makes some kind
> of sense.  For small latex add-ons, I don't see it.

What we need of course, is a standalone multiplatform installer that 
will download a package as a zip file and put the files in all the right
(TDS) places...

///Peter