two suggestions:

1)  accept paths like "./foo.html" as local links.

2) Augment C-c C-l to react to file: by providing filename
completion relative to the working directory.

The emacs binding to the w3m browser does this if you type file: in the minibuffer
when prompted for a URL.

"Carsten" == Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> writes:

   Carsten> Hmmmm, this is *such* a good idea, that I will
   Carsten> implement this retroactively into all versions since
   Carsten> ... 2.0 or so?  Abracadabra! Done.
   Carsten>
   Carsten> In fact, it has been working just so for a very long
   Carsten> time.
   Carsten>
   Carsten> file:foo.html -> href="foo.html" file:foo.org ->
   Carsten> href="foo.html"
   Carsten>
   Carsten> The second line assumes that the org file foo.org
   Carsten> will also be converted to an html file in the
   Carsten> publishing process....
   Carsten>
   Carsten> Also, I was mistaken earlier:
   Carsten>
   Carsten> http:foo.html becomes href="http:foo.html" and not
   Carsten> href="foo.html"
   Carsten>
   Carsten> so this actually cannot be used for a local link.
   Carsten>
   Carsten> So what remains from this exchange?  Should we
   Carsten> accept links that look like absolute file names
   Carsten> (including ./foo.html) as equivalent to
   Carsten> file:./foo.html ?
   Carsten>
   Carsten> - Carsten
   Carsten>
   Carsten> On Apr 13, 2008, at 6:25 PM, T. V. Raman wrote:
   Carsten>

I think writing http:foo.html is a bad idea because typing that

string in other contexts is sort of meaningless as a URL.

Until now, everything one types in org-mode sort of has

meaning elsewhere. If you want it to look like a url in

this case too then I'd suggest file:foo.html -- rther than

http:file.html.

I did not suggest that earlier because it's more chars to

type, but that's not a huge concern since emacs does the

typing, and we could always augment c-c c-l to enable

authoring of relative links with file completion.

so file:a/b/c.html would become href="a/b/c.html" in the

generated html.

"Carsten" == Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl>

writes:

   Carsten> On Apr 13, 2008, at 5:33 PM, T. V. Raman wrote:
   Carsten>

I've not tried http:foo.html -- but I suggest doing that

to author a relative URL is a bad idea.

   Carsten>
   Carsten> Can you explain why you think that this is a bad
   Carsten> idea?  Educate me!  What is wrong with writing
   Carsten> http:foo.html ??????
   Carsten>
   Carsten> - Carsten
   Carsten>

I tried ./foo.html and that didn't work either. One compromise

would be to get ./foo.html to link to a relative url,

while foo.html continues to link to a local anchor

"Carsten" == Carsten Dominik

<dominik@science.uva.nl> writes:

   Carsten> On Apr 13, 2008, at 6:49 AM, T. V. Raman wrote:
   Carsten>

Hi,

org-export turns links of the form [[foo][link to

relative url foo]]

ends up creating links of the form <a

href="#foo">...</a>

this means that it becomes impossible to write

hyperlinks that are relative URLs.

   Carsten>
   Carsten> Hi Raman,
   Carsten>
   Carsten> the url goes into the first pair of square brackets,
   Carsten> the description into the second.  If you put
   Carsten> something into the first bracket pair that does not
   Carsten> look lie a url, it will be treated as an internal
   Carsten> link.
   Carsten>
   Carsten> Have you tried to use something like
   Carsten>
   Carsten> [[http:foo.html][link to relative url]]
   Carsten>
   Carsten> ?
   Carsten>
   Carsten> - Carsten

--

Best Regards, --raman

Email: raman@users.sf.net WWW:

http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/ AIM: emacspeak GTalk:

tv.raman.tv@gmail.com PGP:

http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/raman-almaden.asc Google:

tv+raman IRC: irc://irc.freenode.net/#emacs

--

Best Regards, --raman

Email: raman@users.sf.net WWW:

http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/ AIM: emacspeak GTalk:

tv.raman.tv@gmail.com PGP:

http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/raman-almaden.asc Google:

tv+raman IRC: irc://irc.freenode.net/#emacs

--
Best Regards,
--raman


Email:  raman@users.sf.net
WWW:    http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/
AIM:    emacspeak       GTalk: tv.raman.tv@gmail.com
PGP:    http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/raman-almaden.asc
Google: tv+raman
IRC:    irc://irc.freenode.net/#emacs