Re: man -t odd page size
Gonzalo, please cc those to whom you are responding. I had to dig this out of the digest, which breaks the threading .. On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:35:36 -0200 Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [..] On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 10:37 AM, Ian Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:35:25 -0200 Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [..] Does an inmensily huge majority have to walk the extra mile in order to get an ISO compliant document whereas a small minority benefits from having non ISO complaint default formats??? Gmail does a superb job of formatting quotes, eh? Gonzalo: shouldn't that be 'the extra kilometre?' :) Well, a quarter of the people on this planet live in China, so by your theory shouldn't the FreeBSD lists, docs and code all be in Chinese? No .. languages are not ISO standards... let alone the fact that we are not discussing languages in here. ISO is just another committee. I think what you're really complaining about is that the US tends to ignore international standards. We know that, it's more about politics .. also not being discussed in here :) I doubt an 'immensely huge majority' of FreeBSD systems are located outside the US (data at http://www.bsdstats.org/freebsd/countries.php notwithstanding, reckoning Australia to have the most FreeBSD users :) That's only if you take bsdstats as the ultimate and most authoritative word on the location of FreeBSD based systems. I do not. And actually Im running 3 FreeBSD systems in my place and Argentina doesn't even figure on that list. My point exactly! So where do you get your assumption that the majority of FreeBSD systems, let alone an 'immensely huge' majority, are located outside the US? I don't say the opposite, just that it's unproveable. and on a side note: will we ever get to see ISO 216 A4 as the default choice for output instead of not-standard, only usefull in the US but useless in the rest of the whole world letter page size and the likes??? I've yet to run into any printing or display software that didn't offer a wide choice of formats, including A4 and many other A* sizes, so what any particular software chooses as its 'default' scarcely matters. To you .. but not for me or for anyone who lives in a country in which non-iso-standard paper (like letter) is simply _not_available_ or costs twice as much as A4. Australia went metric in the mid '70s, and I don't know where I could find letter-size paper if I wanted any, which I don't. Nor do I find it any great inconvenience to select A4 for printing. Storm in a teacup? I undertand this may not be a problem for someone who can just man -t man | ps2pdf14 - man_getopt and get a printable pdf that uses the whole page but I have to go zcat `man -w ls` | groff -Tps -dpaper=a4 -P-pa4 -mandoc | ps2pdf - tmp.pdf in order to get a usefull output or use the first method and waste a lot of paper (wasting resources .. wich is something the, we, citizens of the third world can not afford). Oh please. I wouldn't try remembering either of those incantations, and any process complicated enough to require looking up in the man/s goes into a one or two-line script here. I can't afford wasted time either. Greetings from Germany, where A4 is the standard for more than a century now. =^_^= I really hope they do, or at least, start contemplating the fact that ISO standards are usefull as a whole or are not usefull at all .. That's not true at all; there's no 'all or nothing' about standards. What actually works and is adopted in the real world determines that. ISO 216 works (and it has worked ever since it's conception, more than 100 years ago) and is adopted in the real world, except for the US, Mexico and Canada. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html Sure. We use it here. But I don't see much point in complaining about those who use something else. We drive on the left side of the road too and would still do so should ISO publish a 'standard' to the contrary :) [For North American readers, there's a list of A4 vendors on that page] Ask yourself: how come the world uses TCP/IP for internet communications rather than the OSI X.200-X.219 suite? How come we're still using SMTP plus a pile of RFCs to deliver email rather than the X.400-X.420 suite? It became a defacto standard ... Just as much as Microsoft Windows did .. Are by any chance using Windows? No, and it's 'reductio ad absurdum' to mention Windows in this context. If you'd actually read much of the OSI stuff - assuming you had a spare year or two - you'd know that TCP/IP became the standard because a) it was working long before the ISO stuff was even being formally tested or
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thursday 23 October 2008 3:49:53 am Polytropon wrote: On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:58:42 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brainstorming .. im thinking maybe there should be no app defined default (in this case).. Maybe you just threw the key on the table .. and default should be what an enviromental setting says default should be (PAGESIZE=letter, PAGESIZE=a4) and not what the apps thinks it should be ... There is something similar placable into /etc/make.conf: PAGE= A4 PAPERSIZE= a4 A4= yes But this is of course not honoured by applications at run time, and only by a few at compile time. Furthermore .. maybe the app should halt if it finds no enviromental setting is available and ask the user to set it in order to know how to proceed. Another idea would to conclude the paper size from a locale setting, let's say, if it's en_US, then select letter, or A4 else. Exactly ... you just avoided a halt due to undefined env setting :) For example, programs like Gimp require a setting to be done manually from within the printing dialog. It shouldn't be there. Things like paper size should be set at system level, not neccessarily at application level. It will make things easier when administrating a system - set paper size once, then forget it. And even if you (as the admin or through /usr/share/skel/*) set it once and forget about it, every user would still be able to set/override his preferred default paper/page size via .cshrc or the like just as we decide whether to use less or more as a pager ;) So paper/page size would be determined at app run time on a case by case basis :) As a side effect, we just took the burden of letting devels decide what default action should be ... if no arg is given, switch to default, which will read the value assigned to PAGESIZE or resort to en_US to default to letter or A4 if else, should PAGESIZE not be defined. As a consecuence, those who have en_US will always have letter as default (regardless of whether they set PAGESIZE or not). And the rest of us will be happy with A4 or would still have the chance to set PAGESIZE=letter. And best of it all is: app default behaviour never changed ! The only diference is that it will read an env before acting ... that env changes the way the app behaves. But that change is transparent to the user ;) An idea would be to place the paper size setting near your printing filter (not the spooler) and advice applications to read it from there, maybe from a file, maybe from an environmental variable. Well .. I think that makes two of us now :D Regards ! PS: now I want to send you a postcard of my city (Buenos Aires)! Send me your address on a private mail if you'd like to get it :) -- Blessings Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:35:25 -0200 Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wednesday 22 October 2008 10:38:40 pm Polytropon wrote: [..] Polytropon: thanks for pdfman script - but does 'pdfman ipfw' work for you? Here the 'overprinting' is misaligned in gv, while others are ok. I know this is not the best idea, but it should be accomplishable without many problems. A better idea would be to write a simple filter that convert the man page (including formatting characters) into LaTeX source and then run it through pdflatex. Exactly .. you got it just the way I wanted .. after your explanantion, the question _begs_ to be asked: do we, citizens of ISO 216 adopting countries, have to walk that cumbersome path in order to get something as simple as an ISO compliant document?? Shouldn't it be the other way around??? Does an inmensily huge majority have to walk the extra mile in order to get an ISO compliant document whereas a small minority benefits from having non ISO complaint default formats??? Gonzalo: shouldn't that be 'the extra kilometre?' :) Well, a quarter of the people on this planet live in China, so by your theory shouldn't the FreeBSD lists, docs and code all be in Chinese? I doubt an 'immensely huge majority' of FreeBSD systems are located outside the US (data at http://www.bsdstats.org/freebsd/countries.php notwithstanding, reckoning Australia to have the most FreeBSD users :) I, for once, would pretty much like to know the logic behind that decision. It's not logic, nor even a decision, but simply a matter of tradition. and on a side note: will we ever get to see ISO 216 A4 as the default choice for output instead of not-standard, only usefull in the US but useless in the rest of the whole world letter page size and the likes??? I've yet to run into any printing or display software that didn't offer a wide choice of formats, including A4 and many other A* sizes, so what any particular software chooses as its 'default' scarcely matters. You're getting my thoughts, man. :-) I'd like to see this happen, too, but I don't think the developers of FreeBSD and all the fine applications will say goodbye to their Letter, Legal, Exec etc. paper formats. A4 isn't a DIN standard anymore, its ISO for many years now, and unlike Letter, it has the ability to be scaled (to half size, to quarter size, to double size) easily. Today, the manual replacement of many different settings is needed to get a system A4 compliant. Greetings from Germany, where A4 is the standard for more than a century now. =^_^= I really hope they do, or at least, start contemplating the fact that ISO standards are usefull as a whole or are not usefull at all .. That's not true at all; there's no 'all or nothing' about standards. What actually works and is adopted in the real world determines that. Ask yourself: how come the world uses TCP/IP for internet communications rather than the OSI X.200-X.219 suite? How come we're still using SMTP plus a pile of RFCs to deliver email rather than the X.400-X.420 suite? Apart from SNMP and its use of (a subset of) the ASN.1 / BER notation, and the X.500-X.521 directory services model to the extent of X.501 certificates, not much of the massive CCITT / OSI / ISO 'standards' have ever entered common usage, most being a camel designed by committee. In '91 I bought three 'fascicles' (volumes) of the CCITT Blue Book for the best part of A$500, then convinced it was the way things would go. I was entirely wrong :) but I don't regret that study for ASN.1 alone. Gretings from Argentina, where A4 is the standard from 1943. And yes .. so are the metric system, kilograms, litres, etc :) I suspect the Yanquis will abandon letter, legal etc paper sizes around the same time they jettison pounds and ounces, feet and inches, gallons and pints .. that is, you probably shouldn't be holding your breath :) cheers, Ian ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
hello, what do you know about this site: http://www.metricamerica.com/. i don't remember where i have read that America is going to apply the SI (ess eye) unit system. so things are going to change maybe even the A4 papersize. a good day, v On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 10:37 AM, Ian Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:35:25 -0200 Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wednesday 22 October 2008 10:38:40 pm Polytropon wrote: [..] Polytropon: thanks for pdfman script - but does 'pdfman ipfw' work for you? Here the 'overprinting' is misaligned in gv, while others are ok. I know this is not the best idea, but it should be accomplishable without many problems. A better idea would be to write a simple filter that convert the man page (including formatting characters) into LaTeX source and then run it through pdflatex. Exactly .. you got it just the way I wanted .. after your explanantion, the question _begs_ to be asked: do we, citizens of ISO 216 adopting countries, have to walk that cumbersome path in order to get something as simple as an ISO compliant document?? Shouldn't it be the other way around??? Does an inmensily huge majority have to walk the extra mile in order to get an ISO compliant document whereas a small minority benefits from having non ISO complaint default formats??? Gonzalo: shouldn't that be 'the extra kilometre?' :) Well, a quarter of the people on this planet live in China, so by your theory shouldn't the FreeBSD lists, docs and code all be in Chinese? I doubt an 'immensely huge majority' of FreeBSD systems are located outside the US (data at http://www.bsdstats.org/freebsd/countries.php notwithstanding, reckoning Australia to have the most FreeBSD users :) I, for once, would pretty much like to know the logic behind that decision. It's not logic, nor even a decision, but simply a matter of tradition. and on a side note: will we ever get to see ISO 216 A4 as the default choice for output instead of not-standard, only usefull in the US but useless in the rest of the whole world letter page size and the likes??? I've yet to run into any printing or display software that didn't offer a wide choice of formats, including A4 and many other A* sizes, so what any particular software chooses as its 'default' scarcely matters. You're getting my thoughts, man. :-) I'd like to see this happen, too, but I don't think the developers of FreeBSD and all the fine applications will say goodbye to their Letter, Legal, Exec etc. paper formats. A4 isn't a DIN standard anymore, its ISO for many years now, and unlike Letter, it has the ability to be scaled (to half size, to quarter size, to double size) easily. Today, the manual replacement of many different settings is needed to get a system A4 compliant. Greetings from Germany, where A4 is the standard for more than a century now. =^_^= I really hope they do, or at least, start contemplating the fact that ISO standards are usefull as a whole or are not usefull at all .. That's not true at all; there's no 'all or nothing' about standards. What actually works and is adopted in the real world determines that. Ask yourself: how come the world uses TCP/IP for internet communications rather than the OSI X.200-X.219 suite? How come we're still using SMTP plus a pile of RFCs to deliver email rather than the X.400-X.420 suite? Apart from SNMP and its use of (a subset of) the ASN.1 / BER notation, and the X.500-X.521 directory services model to the extent of X.501 certificates, not much of the massive CCITT / OSI / ISO 'standards' have ever entered common usage, most being a camel designed by committee. In '91 I bought three 'fascicles' (volumes) of the CCITT Blue Book for the best part of A$500, then convinced it was the way things would go. I was entirely wrong :) but I don't regret that study for ASN.1 alone. Gretings from Argentina, where A4 is the standard from 1943. And yes .. so are the metric system, kilograms, litres, etc :) I suspect the Yanquis will abandon letter, legal etc paper sizes around the same time they jettison pounds and ounces, feet and inches, gallons and pints .. that is, you probably shouldn't be holding your breath :) cheers, Ian ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:37:56 +1100 (EST), Ian Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Polytropon: thanks for pdfman script - but does 'pdfman ipfw' work for you? Here the 'overprinting' is misaligned in gv, while others are ok. Yes, but it outputs an error message: standard input:2620: warning [p 25, 6.2i]: cannot adjust line The PDF file is 26 pages long. Maybe another PDF viewer will work better (xpdf)? Well, a quarter of the people on this planet live in China, so by your theory shouldn't the FreeBSD lists, docs and code all be in Chinese? Let me follow this Micky Mouse Logic. :-) Because the computer has been invented by a German, all computer stuff should be in the german language. And now all the Americans can feel how the average german computer user feels today: scared by all the things he doesn't understand. :-) What actually works and is adopted in the real world determines that. Nota bene: The worst solution always prevails. People want cheap, they get cheap. Insert bunch of Murphy's laws here. :-) Ask yourself: how come the world uses TCP/IP for internet communications rather than the OSI X.200-X.219 suite? How come we're still using SMTP plus a pile of RFCs to deliver email rather than the X.400-X.420 suite? Having worked with the AX.25 protocol (on amateur radio), sometimes I tend to thing... oh what a crap is TCP/IP... :-) -- Polytropon From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
Ian Smith wrote: I doubt an 'immensely huge majority' of FreeBSD systems are located outside the US (data at http://www.bsdstats.org/freebsd/countries.php notwithstanding, reckoning Australia to have the most FreeBSD users :) whoa! All your bases are belong to down under! :D -- en0f ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thu, 23 Oct 2008, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: A good start would just be determining which programs need to be modified. A check for similar work in other operating systems would be very useful. Finally, a proposal for the way to implement the change, and maybe even patches. Well .. we seem to have a start about which programs need to be modified ... A list of base FreeBSD programs that need page size support would give a good idea of what approaches can be used. It gets a little tougher regarding other operting system given that FreeBSD is the only one running on my only PC :'( But there are printing applications that run on both FreeBSD and other OSs. CUPS or one of the big desktop environments or one of the variations of Linux may have already addressed global page size setting. You don't have to run them to research them. Taking advantage of existing work can get things going a lot faster and avoid unexpected pitfalls. (A shorter way of saying that: It's better to learn from somebody else's mistakes.) -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thu, 23 Oct 2008, Polytropon wrote: On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:37:56 +1100 (EST), Ian Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Polytropon: thanks for pdfman script - but does 'pdfman ipfw' work for you? Here the 'overprinting' is misaligned in gv, while others are ok. Yes, but it outputs an error message: standard input:2620: warning [p 25, 6.2i]: cannot adjust line The PDF file is 26 pages long. Maybe another PDF viewer will work better (xpdf)? Modified to rm any /tmp/man.pdf first, then tried both xpdf and kpdf .. still the same problem. Here's a small (if messy) text clip from xpdf; all the underlining and overprinting stuff gets scrambled, plus some missing newlines later in the file .. N A ME N AM E ip fw -- IP firewall and traffic shaper control program pf w S YN OP SI S SY NO PS I S ip fw [- c q] a dd _ u_ e pf w - cq ad d r_ l_ However this time I noticed an error listed also, different to yours, maybe because mine is only 20 pages (this on 5.5-STABLE if it matters) sola% pdfman ipfw (source:.gz: No such file or directory /usr/share/man/man8/ipfw.8.gz).gz: No such file or directory Which is strange, and goes away if I redirect the first command's stderr to /dev/null, but it doesn't change the output. The groff output looks ok, not that I read postscript beyond seeing head and tail look intact. zcat `man -w [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2/dev/null | groff -Tps -dpaper=a4 -P-pa4 -mandoc \ | ps2pdf - /tmp/man.pdf gv /tmp/man.pdf Seems that short (or maybe just 'some') mans work very well, but longer ones, (or just 'some others'?) have problems here, eg: sola% pdfman ip # looks great, 5pp sola% pdfman ipfw # overprinting misaligned as above, 20pp sola% pdfman csh# pretty rough and misaligned also, 48pp standard input:1798: normal or special character expected (got a tab character) standard input:1798: normal or special character expected (got a space) standard input:1798: normal or special character expected (got a space) standard input:1798: normal or special character expected (got a space) standard input:1800: a backspace character is not allowed in an escape name standard input:1801: a backspace character is not allowed in an escape name standard input:1804: warning: numeric expression expected (got `v') sola% Possibly just my out of date ports (don't ask), quite likely ps2pdf? Well, a quarter of the people on this planet live in China, so by your theory shouldn't the FreeBSD lists, docs and code all be in Chinese? Let me follow this Micky Mouse Logic. :-) Because the computer has been invented by a German, all computer stuff should be in the german language. And now all the Americans can feel how the average german computer user feels today: scared by all the things he doesn't understand. :-) Charlie Babbage was German? Learn something every day on this list :) What actually works and is adopted in the real world determines that. Nota bene: The worst solution always prevails. But much sooner than the best, which takes forever. People want cheap, they get cheap. We wanted free, we got free .. and don't have to shell out maybe $10k+ for a shelf full of CCITT / ISO docs! Ask yourself: how come the world uses TCP/IP for internet communications rather than the OSI X.200-X.219 suite? How come we're still using SMTP plus a pile of RFCs to deliver email rather than the X.400-X.420 suite? Having worked with the AX.25 protocol (on amateur radio), sometimes I tend to thing... oh what a crap is TCP/IP... :-) Well I suppose the ITU have a TCP/IP-free X.20something net running somewhere, but it doesn't look like pushing TCP/IP off its perch .. cheers, Ian ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
Valentin Bud wrote: hello, what do you know about this site: http://www.metricamerica.com/. i don't remember where i have read that America is going to apply the SI (ess eye) unit system. so things are going to change maybe even the A4 papersize. a good day, v #... Aloha, The Metric System has been a legal measure in the United States since the 1860's. There is nothing to stop anybody legally from using it. In many places in the country both are used. Tue US Military uses Metric. The film and Video industry for example. Here in Hawaii the population is very diverse and most people have come from Metric countries. If you have to ever work on maintaining equipment, mechanical or electronic, here in the US, both tool sizes are a must. I had to replace a storage battery yesterday on a clients Japanese Fork Lift and the fasteners were all metric except for one battery terminal clamp. I think the choice by locale for FreeBSD is an excellent solution. ~Al Plant - Honolulu, Hawaii - Phone: 808-284-2740 + http://hawaiidakine.com + http://freebsdinfo.org + + http://aloha50.net - Supporting - FreeBSD 6.* - 7.* - 8.* + email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] All that's really worth doing is what we do for others.- Lewis Carrol ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: man -t odd page size
On Behalf Of Al Plant Valentin Bud wrote: hello, what do you know about this site: http://www.metricamerica.com/. i don't remember where i have read that America is going to apply the SI (ess eye) unit system. so things are going to change maybe even the A4 papersize. The Metric System has been a legal measure in the United States since the 1860's. There is nothing to stop anybody legally from using it. However, there is one problem. When I go into Staples, Office Depot or Sam's, they only have letter sized paper. I have yet to see a single box of A4 or any other ISO size. Sure, my printers can handle A4, but where can I buy a couple reams of it? Bob McConnell Ithaca, NY ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
Bob McConnell wrote: On Behalf Of Al Plant Valentin Bud wrote: hello, what do you know about this site: http://www.metricamerica.com/. i don't remember where i have read that America is going to apply the SI (ess eye) unit system. so things are going to change maybe even the A4 papersize. The Metric System has been a legal measure in the United States since the 1860's. There is nothing to stop anybody legally from using it. However, there is one problem. When I go into Staples, Office Depot or Sam's, they only have letter sized paper. I have yet to see a single box of A4 or any other ISO size. Sure, my printers can handle A4, but where can I buy a couple reams of it? Bob McConnell Ithaca, NY Locally, probably nowhere. But try www.staples.com where there's currently one type of paper available by the ream or case. Of course, it costs more and then you'll need to get A4 binders, slightly longer file folders, a new file cabinet, It's not easy switching. --Jon Radel smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
RE: man -t odd page size
From: Jon Radel Bob McConnell wrote: On Behalf Of Al Plant Valentin Bud wrote: hello, what do you know about this site: http://www.metricamerica.com/. i don't remember where i have read that America is going to apply the SI (ess eye) unit system. so things are going to change maybe even the A4 papersize. The Metric System has been a legal measure in the United States since the 1860's. There is nothing to stop anybody legally from using it. However, there is one problem. When I go into Staples, Office Depot or Sam's, they only have letter sized paper. I have yet to see a single box of A4 or any other ISO size. Sure, my printers can handle A4, but where can I buy a couple reams of it? Bob McConnell Ithaca, NY Locally, probably nowhere. But try www.staples.com where there's currently one type of paper available by the ream or case. Of course, it costs more and then you'll need to get A4 binders, slightly longer file folders, a new file cabinet, It's not easy switching. Well, in this case I don't plan to switch the whole house over. But I do have a few documents and schematics that I would like to print on the correct size paper instead of having to bypass the size check at the printer. It does look like online ordering is the only way for now. Thanks, Bob McConnell ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thursday 23 October 2008 6:44:59 am Valentin Bud wrote: hello, what do you know about this site: http://www.metricamerica.com/. i don't remember where i have read that America is going to apply the SI (ess eye) unit system. so things are going to change maybe even the A4 papersize. a good day, v On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 10:37 AM, Ian Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:35:25 -0200 Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wednesday 22 October 2008 10:38:40 pm Polytropon wrote: [..] Polytropon: thanks for pdfman script - but does 'pdfman ipfw' work for you? Here the 'overprinting' is misaligned in gv, while others are ok. I know this is not the best idea, but it should be accomplishable without many problems. A better idea would be to write a simple filter that convert the man page (including formatting characters) into LaTeX source and then run it through pdflatex. Exactly .. you got it just the way I wanted .. after your explanantion, the question _begs_ to be asked: do we, citizens of ISO 216 adopting countries, have to walk that cumbersome path in order to get something as simple as an ISO compliant document?? Shouldn't it be the other way around??? Does an inmensily huge majority have to walk the extra mile in order to get an ISO compliant document whereas a small minority benefits from having non ISO complaint default formats??? Gonzalo: shouldn't that be 'the extra kilometre?' :) Well, a quarter of the people on this planet live in China, so by your theory shouldn't the FreeBSD lists, docs and code all be in Chinese? No .. languages are not ISO standards... let alone the fact that we are not discussing languages in here. I doubt an 'immensely huge majority' of FreeBSD systems are located outside the US (data at http://www.bsdstats.org/freebsd/countries.php notwithstanding, reckoning Australia to have the most FreeBSD users :) That's only if you take bsdstats as the ultimate and most authoritative word on the location of FreeBSD based systems. I do not. And actually Im running 3 FreeBSD systems in my place and Argentina doesn't even figure on that list. I, for once, would pretty much like to know the logic behind that decision. It's not logic, nor even a decision, but simply a matter of tradition. I wonder why did we stop using the abacus .. or candles .. they where pretty traditional back in those days ... and on a side note: will we ever get to see ISO 216 A4 as the default choice for output instead of not-standard, only usefull in the US but useless in the rest of the whole world letter page size and the likes??? I've yet to run into any printing or display software that didn't offer a wide choice of formats, including A4 and many other A* sizes, so what any particular software chooses as its 'default' scarcely matters. To you .. but not for me or for anyone who lives in a country in which non-iso-standard paper (like letter) is simply _not_available_ or costs twice as much as A4. I undertand this may not be a problem for someone who can just man -t man | ps2pdf14 - man_getopt and get a printable pdf that uses the whole page but I have to go zcat `man -w ls` | groff -Tps -dpaper=a4 -P-pa4 -mandoc | ps2pdf - tmp.pdf in order to get a usefull output or use the first method and waste a lot of paper (wasting resources .. wich is something the, we, citizens of the third world can not afford). You're getting my thoughts, man. :-) I'd like to see this happen, too, but I don't think the developers of FreeBSD and all the fine applications will say goodbye to their Letter, Legal, Exec etc. paper formats. A4 isn't a DIN standard anymore, its ISO for many years now, and unlike Letter, it has the ability to be scaled (to half size, to quarter size, to double size) easily. Today, the manual replacement of many different settings is needed to get a system A4 compliant. Greetings from Germany, where A4 is the standard for more than a century now. =^_^= I really hope they do, or at least, start contemplating the fact that ISO standards are usefull as a whole or are not usefull at all .. That's not true at all; there's no 'all or nothing' about standards. What actually works and is adopted in the real world determines that. ISO 216 works (and it has worked ever since it's conception, more than 100 years ago) and is adopted in the real world, except for the US, Mexico and Canada. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html Ask yourself: how come the world uses TCP/IP for internet communications rather than the OSI X.200-X.219 suite? How come we're still using SMTP plus a pile of RFCs to deliver email rather than the X.400-X.420 suite? It became a defacto standard ... Just as
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thursday 23 October 2008 6:50:11 am Polytropon wrote: On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:37:56 +1100 (EST), Ian Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, a quarter of the people on this planet live in China, so by your theory shouldn't the FreeBSD lists, docs and code all be in Chinese? Let me follow this Micky Mouse Logic. :-) Because the computer has been invented by a German, all computer stuff should be in the german language. And now all the Americans can feel how the average german computer user feels today: scared by all the things he doesn't understand. :-) No, not German, please !! It's really hard :( French and Spanish and way easier ! or Italian ! (just joking :) but seriously .. german is way too hard to :( ) Cheers :) -- Blessings Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thursday 23 October 2008 5:39:36 pm Bob McConnell wrote: On Behalf Of Al Plant Valentin Bud wrote: hello, what do you know about this site: http://www.metricamerica.com/. i don't remember where i have read that America is going to apply the SI (ess eye) unit system. so things are going to change maybe even the A4 papersize. The Metric System has been a legal measure in the United States since the 1860's. There is nothing to stop anybody legally from using it. However, there is one problem. When I go into Staples, Office Depot or Sam's, they only have letter sized paper. I have yet to see a single box of A4 or any other ISO size. Sure, my printers can handle A4, but where can I buy a couple reams of it? Turn it around and that's what happens to the rest of us who do not live in the US or Canada :( I'm not saying get rid of letter / drop letter .. im just proposing to analize the idea that letter is no longer the one and only option available and that defaulting to it has no bad side effects .. A4 affects too many of us .. and having apps defaulting to letter is increasingly becoming a serious shortcoming that should start to be taken into consideration ... at least give us a simple to use flag :( Bob McConnell Ithaca, NY ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Regards -- Blessings Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 09:23:10AM -1000, Al Plant wrote: Valentin Bud wrote: hello, what do you know about this site: http://www.metricamerica.com/. i don't remember where i have read that America is going to apply the SI (ess eye) unit system. so things are going to change maybe even the A4 papersize. a good day, v #... Aloha, The Metric System has been a legal measure in the United States since the 1860's. There is nothing to stop anybody legally from using it. Isn't it about time we dump the obsolete 'metric' system based on the paltry base-10 arithmetic and move in to the future with a digitally compatible system based on powers of 2!Divide the day in to 16 hours, 16 minutes per hour, 16 seconds per minute, 16 ??? per second (make up a name), Divide the speed of light by a big power of 2 to get your base measurement of length. Design 6 more digit symbols. Through away some of the dross in plain ASCII and fit them in there. Quit trying to force people to count on their fingers. jerry In many places in the country both are used. Tue US Military uses Metric. The film and Video industry for example. Here in Hawaii the population is very diverse and most people have come from Metric countries. If you have to ever work on maintaining equipment, mechanical or electronic, here in the US, both tool sizes are a must. I had to replace a storage battery yesterday on a clients Japanese Fork Lift and the fasteners were all metric except for one battery terminal clamp. I think the choice by locale for FreeBSD is an excellent solution. ~Al Plant - Honolulu, Hawaii - Phone: 808-284-2740 + http://hawaiidakine.com + http://freebsdinfo.org + + http://aloha50.net - Supporting - FreeBSD 6.* - 7.* - 8.* + email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] All that's really worth doing is what we do for others.- Lewis Carrol ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
man -t odd page size
Hello there my friends. I happen to have this little problem and was wondering if somebody could have a quick answer. I'm fed up of reading man pages on my monitor, so I begun to turn them into pdf. In order to do so i just issue the following command: man -t 3 getopt | ps2pdf14 - man_getopt It _does_ work, but the problem is that man -t ( -t == /usr/bin/groff -S -man) formats the man page in a really non-standart page size ( %%DocumentMedia: Default 612 792 0 () () ... /PageSize [ 612 792 ] ) which .. well .. sucks .. Is there an easy way to get man to format the man page using plain good ISO 216 standard A4 page size? In case you are wondering: yes, google didn't help and yes, the man pages for groff, troff, nroff, ditroff, huge list of etceteras didn't help either. and on a side note: will we ever get to see ISO 216 A4 as the default choice for output instead of not-standard, only usefull in the US but useless in the rest of the whole world letter page size and the likes??? Regards -- Blessings Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
Hi! On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:56:20 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there an easy way to get man to format the man page using plain good ISO 216 standard A4 page size? My suggfestion for an attempt would be to first strip any control characters from the output of man -P cat entry and then pipe it to an ASCII to PDF converter (a2ps, if I remember correctly); this would remove any markups, I know, but would lead to a PDF output using the system's default paper size, A4 (I hope). I know this is not the best idea, but it should be accomplishable without many problems. A better idea would be to write a simple filter that convert the man page (including formatting characters) into LaTeX source and then run it through pdflatex. and on a side note: will we ever get to see ISO 216 A4 as the default choice for output instead of not-standard, only usefull in the US but useless in the rest of the whole world letter page size and the likes??? You're getting my thoughts, man. :-) I'd like to see this happen, too, but I don't think the developers of FreeBSD and all the fine applications will say goodbye to their Letter, Legal, Exec etc. paper formats. A4 isn't a DIN standard anymore, its ISO for many years now, and unlike Letter, it has the ability to be scaled (to half size, to quarter size, to double size) easily. Today, the manual replacement of many different settings is needed to get a system A4 compliant. Greetings from Germany, where A4 is the standard for more than a century now. =^_^= -- Polytropon From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thu, 23 Oct 2008, Polytropon wrote: On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:56:20 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there an easy way to get man to format the man page using plain good ISO 216 standard A4 page size? My suggfestion for an attempt would be to first strip any control characters from the output of man -P cat entry and then pipe it to an ASCII to PDF converter (a2ps, if I remember correctly); this would remove any markups, I know, but would lead to a PDF output using the system's default paper size, A4 (I hope). But groff can do A4. Just as a first pass: zcat `man -w ls` | groff -Tps -dpaper=a4 -P-pa4 -mandoc | ps2pdf - tmp.pdf It produces the right media size in the PS file, but I can't really test it because I don't have any A4 paper. Maybe there's a way to get man(1) to send different options to groff than -t, but I don't know it. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Wednesday 22 October 2008 10:38:40 pm Polytropon wrote: Hi! On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:56:20 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there an easy way to get man to format the man page using plain good ISO 216 standard A4 page size? My suggfestion for an attempt would be to first strip any control characters from the output of man -P cat entry and then pipe it to an ASCII to PDF converter (a2ps, if I remember correctly); this would remove any markups, I know, but would lead to a PDF output using the system's default paper size, A4 (I hope). I know this is not the best idea, but it should be accomplishable without many problems. A better idea would be to write a simple filter that convert the man page (including formatting characters) into LaTeX source and then run it through pdflatex. Exactly .. you got it just the way I wanted .. after your explanantion, the question _begs_ to be asked: do we, citizens of ISO 216 adopting countries, have to walk that cumbersome path in order to get something as simple as an ISO compliant document?? Shouldn't it be the other way around??? Does an inmensily huge majority have to walk the extra mile in order to get an ISO compliant document whereas a small minority benefits from having non ISO complaint default formats??? I, for once, would pretty much like to know the logic behind that decision. and on a side note: will we ever get to see ISO 216 A4 as the default choice for output instead of not-standard, only usefull in the US but useless in the rest of the whole world letter page size and the likes??? You're getting my thoughts, man. :-) I'd like to see this happen, too, but I don't think the developers of FreeBSD and all the fine applications will say goodbye to their Letter, Legal, Exec etc. paper formats. A4 isn't a DIN standard anymore, its ISO for many years now, and unlike Letter, it has the ability to be scaled (to half size, to quarter size, to double size) easily. Today, the manual replacement of many different settings is needed to get a system A4 compliant. Greetings from Germany, where A4 is the standard for more than a century now. =^_^= I really hope they do, or at least, start contemplating the fact that ISO standards are usefull as a whole or are not usefull at all .. Gretings from Argentina, where A4 is the standard from 1943. And yes .. so are the metric system, kilograms, litres, etc :) Sincere regards -- Blessings Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:19:16 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But groff can do A4. Just as a first pass: zcat `man -w ls` | groff -Tps -dpaper=a4 -P-pa4 -mandoc | ps2pdf - tmp.pdf It produces the right media size in the PS file, but I can't really test it because I don't have any A4 paper. I checked it - excellent. The formatting of the structural elements works fine, the result is printable. I've just finished ~/bin/man2pdf. :-) -- Polytropon From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Wednesday 22 October 2008 10:38:40 pm Polytropon wrote: Hi! On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:56:20 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there an easy way to get man to format the man page using plain good ISO 216 standard A4 page size? My suggfestion for an attempt would be to first strip any control characters from the output of man -P cat entry and then pipe it to an ASCII to PDF converter (a2ps, if I remember correctly); this would remove any markups, I know, but would lead to a PDF output using the system's default paper size, A4 (I hope). I know this is not the best idea, but it should be accomplishable without many problems. A better idea would be to write a simple filter that convert the man page (including formatting characters) into LaTeX source and then run it through pdflatex. Exactly .. you got it just the way I wanted .. after your explanantion, the question _begs_ to be asked: do we, citizens of ISO 216 adopting countries, have to walk that cumbersome path in order to get something as simple as an ISO compliant document?? Shouldn't it be the other way around??? Perhaps, but since the roots of *BSD are in the USA, letter was a sensible default (at the time). Now, if a collection of FreeBSD members from ISO 216 adopting companies wanted to figure out a way to put default paper size into some kind of locale option that man (and other tools) could use, then that would go a long way towards reducing the pain. -- Matt ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thursday 23 October 2008 12:12:23 am Matt Emmerton wrote: On Wednesday 22 October 2008 10:38:40 pm Polytropon wrote: Hi! On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:56:20 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there an easy way to get man to format the man page using plain good ISO 216 standard A4 page size? My suggfestion for an attempt would be to first strip any control characters from the output of man -P cat entry and then pipe it to an ASCII to PDF converter (a2ps, if I remember correctly); this would remove any markups, I know, but would lead to a PDF output using the system's default paper size, A4 (I hope). I know this is not the best idea, but it should be accomplishable without many problems. A better idea would be to write a simple filter that convert the man page (including formatting characters) into LaTeX source and then run it through pdflatex. Exactly .. you got it just the way I wanted .. after your explanantion, the question _begs_ to be asked: do we, citizens of ISO 216 adopting countries, have to walk that cumbersome path in order to get something as simple as an ISO compliant document?? Shouldn't it be the other way around??? Perhaps, but since the roots of *BSD are in the USA, letter was a sensible default (at the time). That's a fact and I couldn't agree more with your assertion. Now, if a collection of FreeBSD members from ISO 216 adopting companies wanted to figure out a way to put default paper size into some kind of locale option that man (and other tools) could use, then that would go a long way towards reducing the pain. -- Matt Now, and taking into consideration your 100% correct assumption and the fact that letter was a sensible default (at the time) wouldn't it make a lot more sense to do it the other way around? I mean .. What about figuring out a way to put default paper size = letter into some kind of locale option that man (and other tools) could use and turn the ISO 216 standard into the default option? Once again, your first assumption about the fact that letter was a sensible default (at the time) is 100% correct, but ... and having as a counterpoint that those times have changed dramatically is it so hard to see the benefits associated with adopting ISO 216 (A4 in particular) as default page size instead of letter? I don't work for an ISO 216 adopting company, and hopefully I never will, I don't speak for them, and hopefully I never will ... I'm just a citizen of the long list of countries who adhere to the ISO 216 and I'd really like to see FreeBSD apps slowly turn to use ISO 216 by default (or at least provide a painless flag like -pa4 or the likes) instead of non-standard formats which only benefit a portion of it's user base, putting the rest of us to stretchs in order to get optimal results. If there's an ISO standar, why not stick to it? I understand that it may have been an inconvenience in the past times .. but those times are long past now, and ISO 216 _is_the_standard_ to which _most_ countries (let alone companies) adhere :S With all due respect: that's my point. Regards -- Blessings Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Wednesday 22 October 2008 11:19:16 pm Warren Block wrote: On Thu, 23 Oct 2008, Polytropon wrote: On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:56:20 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there an easy way to get man to format the man page using plain good ISO 216 standard A4 page size? My suggfestion for an attempt would be to first strip any control characters from the output of man -P cat entry and then pipe it to an ASCII to PDF converter (a2ps, if I remember correctly); this would remove any markups, I know, but would lead to a PDF output using the system's default paper size, A4 (I hope). But groff can do A4. Just as a first pass: zcat `man -w ls` | groff -Tps -dpaper=a4 -P-pa4 -mandoc | ps2pdf - tmp.pdf It produces the right media size in the PS file, but I can't really test it because I don't have any A4 paper. Maybe there's a way to get man(1) to send different options to groff than -t, but I don't know it. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA You just rule ... Thank you I mean it .. Thanks a lot :) My best regards :D -- Blessings Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Wednesday 22 October 2008 11:51:02 pm you wrote: On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:19:16 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But groff can do A4. Just as a first pass: zcat `man -w ls` | groff -Tps -dpaper=a4 -P-pa4 -mandoc | ps2pdf - tmp.pdf It produces the right media size in the PS file, but I can't really test it because I don't have any A4 paper. I checked it - excellent. The formatting of the structural elements works fine, the result is printable. I've just finished ~/bin/man2pdf. :-) Amm ... could you share it with us? Please, please, please??? :D -- Blessings Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 01:14:10 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Amm ... could you share it with us? Please, please, please??? :D In basic (not in BASIC) it consists the same commands that Warren posted. It's a simple two line script without significant error checking, and of course coded in an ugly way (as it is used to scare people off the command line): #!/bin/sh [ $# != 0 ] ( zcat `man -w [EMAIL PROTECTED] | groff -Tps -dpaper=a4 -P-pa4 -mandoc | ps2pdf - /tmp/man.pdf gv /tmp/man.pdf rm /tmp/man.pdf ) By the way, it's called ~/bin/pdfman here now, because man2pdf would suggest that it takes a manpage as input and gives a PDF file as output, but it doesn't - it's used just like man, but produces and displays (!) the manpage file right away, giving the user the choice to view and / or to print it (from within the viewer); I chose gv, but you can use xpdf, KDE's or Gnome's default PDF viewer or the thing from Acrobat, if you like. Afterwards, the PDF file, stored temporarily, is deleted. One of its disadvantages is that you cannot search within the PDF file such as you can from within man's default pager less, using the / key. -- Polytropon From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thursday 23 October 2008 1:33:48 am Polytropon wrote: On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 01:14:10 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Amm ... could you share it with us? Please, please, please??? :D In basic (not in BASIC) it consists the same commands that Warren posted. It's a simple two line script without significant error checking, and of course coded in an ugly way (as it is used to scare people off the command line): #!/bin/sh [ $# != 0 ] ( zcat `man -w [EMAIL PROTECTED] | groff -Tps -dpaper=a4 -P-pa4 -mandoc | ps2pdf - /tmp/man.pdf gv /tmp/man.pdf rm /tmp/man.pdf ) By the way, it's called ~/bin/pdfman here now, because man2pdf would suggest that it takes a manpage as input and gives a PDF file as output, but it doesn't - it's used just like man, but produces and displays (!) the manpage file right away, giving the user the choice to view and / or to print it (from within the viewer); I chose gv, but you can use xpdf, KDE's or Gnome's default PDF viewer or the thing from Acrobat, if you like. Afterwards, the PDF file, stored temporarily, is deleted. One of its disadvantages is that you cannot search within the PDF file such as you can from within man's default pager less, using the / key. Your rule too :D Will try to make a perl version of it (just for fun and because I like perl a lot .. hate me if you so desire .. I know I desereve it :) ) and post it as soon as it works ok :) Thanks a lot for your support Polytropon :) PS: now we have pdf man pages in A4 format :D :D :D Best regards -- Blessings Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thu, 23 Oct 2008, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Thursday 23 October 2008 12:12:23 am Matt Emmerton wrote: Perhaps, but since the roots of *BSD are in the USA, letter was a sensible default (at the time). That's a fact and I couldn't agree more with your assertion. Now, if a collection of FreeBSD members from ISO 216 adopting companies wanted to figure out a way to put default paper size into some kind of locale option that man (and other tools) could use, then that would go a long way towards reducing the pain. Now, and taking into consideration your 100% correct assumption and the fact that letter was a sensible default (at the time) wouldn't it make a lot more sense to do it the other way around? Given history and POLA, probably not. I mean .. What about figuring out a way to put default paper size = letter into some kind of locale option that man (and other tools) could use and turn the ISO 216 standard into the default option? Having a new default that is different from the historical one can be a problem for legacy stuff. I don't work for an ISO 216 adopting company, and hopefully I never will, I don't speak for them, and hopefully I never will ... I'm just a citizen of the long list of countries who adhere to the ISO 216 and I'd really like to see FreeBSD apps slowly turn to use ISO 216 by default (or at least provide a painless flag like -pa4 or the likes) instead of non-standard formats which only benefit a portion of it's user base, putting the rest of us to stretchs in order to get optimal results. Don't mistake the lack of a feature like global page size settings for a refusal. Maybe it's hard to do, or there just hasn't been enough need to motivate someone to implement it. The strength of open source software is that users can make improvements they need. So consider this your opportunity to help. A good start would just be determining which programs need to be modified. A check for similar work in other operating systems would be very useful. Finally, a proposal for the way to implement the change, and maybe even patches. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thursday 23 October 2008 2:07:35 am Warren Block wrote: On Thu, 23 Oct 2008, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote: On Thursday 23 October 2008 12:12:23 am Matt Emmerton wrote: Perhaps, but since the roots of *BSD are in the USA, letter was a sensible default (at the time). That's a fact and I couldn't agree more with your assertion. Now, if a collection of FreeBSD members from ISO 216 adopting companies wanted to figure out a way to put default paper size into some kind of locale option that man (and other tools) could use, then that would go a long way towards reducing the pain. Now, and taking into consideration your 100% correct assumption and the fact that letter was a sensible default (at the time) wouldn't it make a lot more sense to do it the other way around? Given history and POLA, probably not. With all due respect, history changes .. it's in its nature .. and I not claiming authority in anyway whatsoever (if that's what POLA stands for). Im just saying there might be room for improvement and that switching from non-standard letter to standard ISO 216 does represent and improvement indeed. I mean .. What about figuring out a way to put default paper size = letter into some kind of locale option that man (and other tools) could use and turn the ISO 216 standard into the default option? Having a new default that is different from the historical one can be a problem for legacy stuff. 100% agreed ... Brainstorming .. im thinking maybe there should be no app defined default (in this case).. Maybe you just threw the key on the table .. and default should be what an enviromental setting says default should be (PAGESIZE=letter, PAGESIZE=a4) and not what the apps thinks it should be ... Furthermore .. maybe the app should halt if it finds no enviromental setting is available and ask the user to set it in order to know how to proceed. Just brainstorming.. Nothing is farther from the truth than me or than whatever comes from my mind. I don't work for an ISO 216 adopting company, and hopefully I never will, I don't speak for them, and hopefully I never will ... I'm just a citizen of the long list of countries who adhere to the ISO 216 and I'd really like to see FreeBSD apps slowly turn to use ISO 216 by default (or at least provide a painless flag like -pa4 or the likes) instead of non-standard formats which only benefit a portion of it's user base, putting the rest of us to stretchs in order to get optimal results. Don't mistake the lack of a feature like global page size settings for a refusal. Maybe it's hard to do, or there just hasn't been enough need to motivate someone to implement it. Never did, never will. It resides in the very nature of OSS that refusals are nothing but a mere illusion .. As you implied in your aforemention paragraph it only takes motivated individuals to turn refusals into realities. The strength of open source software is that users can make improvements they need. So consider this your opportunity to help. Exactly... and I think I just begun to do that :) A good start would just be determining which programs need to be modified. A check for similar work in other operating systems would be very useful. Finally, a proposal for the way to implement the change, and maybe even patches. Well .. we seem to have a start about which programs need to be modified ... It gets a little tougher regarding other operting system given that FreeBSD is the only one running on my only PC :'( Thanks for your expert advise Warren (I mean it). I'll dedicate the next few days to think on a scheme to solve this issue in the most elegant, less prone to error and less disruptive way to solve this matter, altough, at least at first glance, letting an eviromental setting define the size of the page to use seems to be most friendly and transparent way to let the user decide the size of the page to use with out too much hassel. I would really like to know what do you think about that approach. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA Yours -- Blessings Gonzalo Nemmi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: man -t odd page size
On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:58:42 -0200, Gonzalo Nemmi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brainstorming .. im thinking maybe there should be no app defined default (in this case).. Maybe you just threw the key on the table .. and default should be what an enviromental setting says default should be (PAGESIZE=letter, PAGESIZE=a4) and not what the apps thinks it should be ... There is something similar placable into /etc/make.conf: PAGE= A4 PAPERSIZE= a4 A4= yes But this is of course not honoured by applications at run time, and only by a few at compile time. Furthermore .. maybe the app should halt if it finds no enviromental setting is available and ask the user to set it in order to know how to proceed. Another idea would to conclude the paper size from a locale setting, let's say, if it's en_US, then select letter, or A4 else. For example, programs like Gimp require a setting to be done manually from within the printing dialog. It shouldn't be there. Things like paper size should be set at system level, not neccessarily at application level. It will make things easier when administrating a system - set paper size once, then forget it. An idea would be to place the paper size setting near your printing filter (not the spooler) and advice applications to read it from there, maybe from a file, maybe from an environmental variable. -- Polytropon From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
