>> online costs bucks to me, my old modem gently weeps,
>> and I hate webbrowsers.) -- intrigeri
+>>> Well, I maybe didn't get your idea properly; I may be missing
+>>> something obvious, but:
+
+>>> * I don't understand how this would replace `is_grand_mother`. As a template
+>>> writer, I don't know, given an absolute array index (and this is the only
+>>> piece of data your solution gives me), if it will be e.g. the before-last
+>>> (how do I say this in correct English?) element of an array whose
+>>> (variable) size is unknown to me.
+>>> * Knowing that `reldepth`'s value is, in a given loop, always equal to
+>>> `absdepth - 1` is of little use to me (as a template writer): how do I use
+>>> this piece of information programmatically in my templates, if I want all
+>>> links with `reldepth==2` to be given the same style? I guess some bits of
+>>> Javascript might do the trick, but if it's getting so complicated, I'll
+>>> just style my parentlinks another way.
+
+>>>> Perhaps I misunderstood what `is_grand_mother` is supposed to do. The
+>>>> docs were not very clear to me. If it's supposed to be 2 down from
+>>>> the page, (and not from the root), this could be achieved by reversing
+>>>> the `depth_n` variables. So the page gets `depth_1` set, its parent gets
+>>>> `depth_2` set, etc. If you want to be able to include/exclude
+>>>> from both ends, you could also have a `height_n` that is 1 for the
+>>>> root, and counts upwards. --[[Joey]]
+
+>>> In my understanding, your suggestion gives us little more than can already
+>>> be achieved anyway with `HTML::Template`'s `loop_context_vars` (i.e.
+>>> `__first__`, `__last__` and `__counter__`). The only added bonus is doing
+>>> custom stuff for an arbitrary element in the loop, chosen by its absolute
+>>> depth. Please correct me if needed.
+
+>>> (Intermezzo: in the meantime, to suit my personal real-world needs, I added
+>>> a `DISTANCE` loop-variable. Quoting the documentation, it's "thedistance,
+>>> expressed in path elements, from the current page to the current path
+>>> element; e.g. this is 1 for the current page's mother, 2 for its
+>>> grand-mother, etc.".)
+
+>>> Anyway, your comments have made me think of other ways to simplify a bit
+>>> this plugin, which admittedly provides too much overlapping functionality.
+>>> Bellow is my reasoning.
+
+>>> In one of my own real world examples, my two main use cases are :
+
+>>> * the "full-blown example" provided in the documentation (i.e.
+>>> displaying every parent but mother and grand'ma as a group, and giving
+>>> every of these two last ones their dedicated div);
+>>> * skipping the two oldest parents, and inside what's left, displaying the
+>>> three youngest parents (i.e. mother, grand'ma and grand'grand'ma), each
+>>> one with a dedicated style;
+
+>>> Both of these can be achieved by combining `PEDIGREE`, `DISTANCE`, and some
+>>> CSS tricks to hide some parts of the list. `IS_MOTHER` and
+>>> `IS_GRAND_MOTHER`, as well as `PEDIGREE_BUT_TWO_OLDEST`, would be convenient
+>>> shortcuts, but I do not formally need them.
+
+>>> So... it seems things can be simplified greatly:
+
+>>> * I initially added `RELDEPTH` for completeness, but I'm not sure anyone
+>>> would use it. Let's give it up.
+>>> * Once `RELDEPTH` is lost (modulo Git tendencies to preserve history), the
+>>> known bug is gone as well, and `PEDIGREE_BUT_ROOT` and
+>>> `PEDIGREE_BUT_TWO_OLDEST` are now only convenient shortcuts functions;
+>>> they could as well disappear, if you prefer to.
+
+>>> It appears then that I'd be personally happy with the single `PEDIGREE` loop
+>>> (renamed to `PARENTLINKS`), providing only `PAGE`, `URL`, `ABSDEPTH` (maybe
+>>> renamed to `DEPTH`), and `DISTANCE`. This would make my templates a bit more
+>>> complicated to write and read, but would also keep the plugin's code to the
+>>> bare minimum. Let's say it is my up-to-date proposal. (Well, if the various
+>>> shortcuts don't really annoy you, I'd be glad to keep them ;)
+
+>>>> This sounds fairly similar to what I just described above. (I called
+>>>> DISTANCE "height".) I don't know about the CSS tricks; seems like if
+>>>> `DEPTH_n` and `DISTANCE_n` are provided, you can test for them inside
+>>>> the loop using HTML::Template's lame testing, and isolate any page or
+>>>> range of pages. --[[Joey]]
+
+>>>>> Ok, I definitely like this idea, as an effective and generic
+>>>>> page-range selection tool; this seems the way to go to me.
+
+>>>>> But if you discard the `DEPTH` and `HEIGHT`
+>>>>> counters, we lack a way to **style**, for example, every parent link
+>>>>> depending on its depth or height; one can do this for arbitrary
+>>>>> parents (chosen by their height or depth), but *not* for *any* parent,
+>>>>> since there is no way to express, with HTML::Template, something like
+>>>>> "display the name of the only `DEPTH_n` variable that is currently
+>>>>> true". So I am in favor of keeping the `DEPTH` and `HEIGHT` counters,
+>>>>> to allow constructs like:
+
+ <TMPL_LOOP NAME="PARENTLINKS">
+ <a href="<TMPL_VAR NAME="URL">" class="parentdistance<TMPL_VAR NAME="DISTANCE">">
+ <TMPL_VAR NAME="PAGE">
+ </a> /
+ </TMPL_LOOP>
+
+>>>>> This seems to me a nice functionality bonus, and should not
+>>>>> imply too bloated code. I'm thus going to rewrite the plugin
+>>>>> with only `PEDIGREE`, `DEPTH`, `HEIGHT`, `DEPTH_n` and
+>>>>> `HEIGHT_n`. -- intrigeri
+
+>>>>>> Done, and pushed in my pedigree branch. Update: I've also done and
+>>>>>> pushed two commits that rename the plugin and replace
+>>>>>> the core parentlinks with this one. --[[intrigeri]]
+
(I'll try never to rebase this branch, but writing this plugin has
been a pretext for me to start learning Git, so...)
>> Just commited a testsuite for this plugin, BTW. It's nearly twice
>> big as the plugin itself, I'm wondering... -- intrigeri
+Merged, nice work. (Overkill having a test suite. ;-) --[[Joey]]
+
+> Thanks. If the testsuite reveals itself to be harder to maintain than
+> the plugin, my ego won't be offended to see it removed. It's been
+> nice to find a way, step by step, to work with you on this small
+> plugin thing. I'm starting to feel a bit at home in ikiwiki
+> sourcetree, which is great since I may have to start working on some
+> more ambitious ikiwiki stuff, such as the ~multilingual wiki
+> (master language + translations) support. Expect news from me on
+> this front in the next weeks. --[[intrigeri]]
+
+[[!tag patch done]]