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[Bioc-devel] Short URLs for packages?

5 messages · Steve Lianoglou, Dan Tenenbaum, Robert Castelo

Original
Dan Tenenbaum
# 
----- Original Message -----
We came up with something close to this, but it does include the /packages/ segment because we think that's important.


http://bioconductor.org/packages/BiocGenerics/

- takes you to the release landing page, unless the package is only in devel, in which case it takes you to
  the devel landing page (which will contain suitable warnings/instructions about installing the devel version).

You can also specify 'devel' or 'release' or a numbered Bioconductor version:

http://bioconductor.org/packages/devel/BiocGenerics/
http://bioconductor.org/packages/release/BiocGenerics/
http://bioconductor.org/packages/3.2/BiocGenerics/
http://bioconductor.org/packages/3.1/BiocGenerics/
http://bioconductor.org/packages/3.0/BiocGenerics/
...

(The trailing slashes are optional in all of these).

These are redirects and not forwards; that is, if you enter one of these short URLs, it won't remain in your browser's address bar but will change to one of the longer URLs. So they are sort of ephemeral in this way.

We looked into doing these as forwards (i.e., short URL remains in address bar, but content from 'long' URL is served), which seems more useful, but there were too many problems with that; it breaks relative URLs and more importantly it breaks our mirrors which do not necessarily have the same content root as our web site. 

At any rate, the short URLs can be used in publications and other sites, and they are useful as a permanent link to the current release version of a package. We have added information about these short URLs to the emails we send to new package developers, so that they can use them in publications that reference their packages.

Thanks,
Dan
Steve Lianoglou
# 
Awesome, thank you!

Now how about forwarding this:

  http://bioconductor.org/packages/

to this:

  http://bioconductor.org/packages/release/BiocViews.html#___Software

... I guess that's what bookmarks are for, but ... who uses those
anymore, anyway? :-)
On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 11:08 AM, Dan Tenenbaum <dtenenba at fredhutch.org> wrote:

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Dan Tenenbaum
    

    

      
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----- Original Message -----

            

      
      
      
    

        
Done.
Dan

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    
1 day later

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Robert Castelo
    

    

      
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hi Dan,

one question about this, just to know whether this is intentional or 
should be fixed. i have noticed that these short URLs:

www.bioconductor.org/packages/BiocGenerics

or

bioconductor.org/packages/BiocGenerics

resolve to

http://master.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/BiocGenerics.html

while the page is correct, should not they be resolving to an URL 
starting with 'www' instead of 'master'? i.e.,

www.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/BiocGenerics.html


this is really minor, but i think it may create confusion when one sees 
the same page starting with 'www' or 'master'.


cheers,

robert.

        
On 04/28/2015 08:08 PM, Dan Tenenbaum wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
or

            

      
      
      
    

        
depending on whether the package was yet released.

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Dan Tenenbaum
    

    

      
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----- Original Message -----

            

      
      
      
    

        
'www' is just an alias, typically any url starting with www should redirect to plain old bioconductor.org.
I've fixed the redirects so they no longer redirect to master. So 


 www.bioconductor.org/packages/BiocGenerics
 
 or
 
 bioconductor.org/packages/BiocGenerics
 
 resolves to
 
 http://bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/BiocGenerics.html

Dan