Bug#87725: suggesting new links to access package web pages.

[Peter S Galbraith <psg@debian.org>]

Brian Russo wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 10:53:43AM -0500, Peter S Galbraith wrote:
> > Instead of (or in addition to):
> > 
> >   http://packages.debian.org/stable/SECTION/PKGNAME.html
> >   http://packages.debian.org/testing/SECTION/PKGNAME.html
> >   http://packages.debian.org/unstable/SECTION/PKGNAME.html
> > 
> > Have:
> > 
> >   http://packages.debian.org/stable/PKGNAME.html
> >   http://packages.debian.org/testing/PKGNAME.html
> >   http://packages.debian.org/unstable/PKGNAME.html
> > 
> > This way, one doesn't need to know the section of a packge to
> > look it up.
> 
> Why can't you just packages.debian.org/package and figure it out?

Three reasons:

 - The packages.debian.org/package URL does a search and is not a
   direct link.  

    - That takes longer, 
    - it's pretty much broken (exact matches usually score last),
    - you can't really use that as a URL to a package in, for
      example, a debian-user reply (so you'd have to looyup the
      section name before writing your reply).

 - The fact that you said `do this extra step and figure it out'
   implies it's not optimal.

 - I want to add links in an emacs menu for debian-changelog-mode
   to invoke the web page for a package.  debian-changelog-mode
   has no way of knowing what section the package is in.

Peter