#+TITLE: Autoconf Archive TODO                 -*- mode:org;fill-column:79; -*-

* TODO Improve submission guide lines on the web site
** Patch submissions should put the original authors on Cc.

   Everyone is welcome to submit patches, bug reports, or suggestions to the
   Autoconf Archive. If you do, please add the original authors to carbon-copy
   list in the patch tracker. You don't have to, if you don't want to look
   their addresses up, but it's considered good practice to give the other
   authors a heads up when the macro is being changed.

** If possible, submit patches with Git.

   Give a usage example for git format-patch.

   If you have an account Savannah, simply request access to the Autoconf
   Archive's repository so that you can use git push.

* TODO Recognize cross-links in macro documentation.

  Macros often refer to other entries in the archive. The macro2texi scripts
  should recognize those references and generate appropriate links in the
  output.

  The implementation of this feature is not as simple as it may sound, because
  Texinfo doesn't offer plain and simple cross-references. There is @xref, of
  course, but use of that macros inserts additional words into the text! The
  reference =@xref{Node}=, for instance, is rendered as =*Note Node=. This
  property makes it very hard to insert references automatically.

* TODO Recognize URIs in macro documentation.

  Some macros feature http or mailto URIs. The generator scripts should
  recognize those and generate appropriate hyperlinks output (where feasible).

* TODO Re-enable disabled sc_* checks from maint.mk [0/6]

  Gnulib wants us to use spelling "file system" and objects when it sees the
  name ax_boost_filesystem in autoconf-archive.texi. There ought to be a way to
  avoid that error.

  Progress: The [[bootstrap.sh]] script disable those checks that don't work well
  for this project. In order to get on, though, some meaningful tests were
  disable, too. We should re-enable those and fix the macro contents to comply
  with those rules:

  * [ ] sc_m4_quote_check
  * [ ] sc_prohibit_strcmp
  * [ ] sc_space_tab
  * [ ] sc_useless_cpp_parens
  * [ ] sc_prohibit_magic_number_exit
  * [ ] sc_copyright_check

* TODO Generate serial lines automatically

  The script [[file:set-serial.sh][set-serial.sh]] uses the git repository to determine an appropriate
  serial number (i.e. the number of commits that have occurred) and patches
  that number into the m4 file. The solution seems to work nicely, but it isn't
  integrated into the build process yet.

* TODO Don't repeat license texts in Texinfo for every macro

  The Texinfo documentation has a section "license" for every macro that
  contains the complete license disclaimer. In case of the all-permissive
  license, that's no big deal because that license is very short. In case of
  GPL + Autoconf exception, however, this leads to a significant amount of
  redundancy in the generated documentation.

  It would be desirable to have the license texts in the documentation *once*
  and to have every macro refer to the appropriate section.