Follow-up Comment #3, bug #68299 (group groff):

At 2026-04-30T16:19:52-0400, Deri James wrote:
> Follow-up Comment #2, bug #68299 (group groff):
>
> On Thursday, 30 April 2026 19:51:36 BST you wrote:
>> What distinguishes this ticket from bug #67665?  Does this one
>> supersede the earlier one?
>
> That bug concerned pdfms.tmac which operated as an addon (in the same
> way as spdf.tmac was an addon to pdfmark.tmac, which required the user
> to use the newer NH/XN combination rather than the original NH to
> create bookmarks).

Ahhhhaaaaa.  </TomBaker>

> Given that most historical ms documents would use NH (with XS/XE if a
> TOC was required), I wanted to make s.tmac support them without adding
> non roffish flag letters to macro calls. The use of ".pdfhref M" to
> "mark" a position in the document is unfortunate, I would prefer a
> native ms macro such as:-
>
> .XM name [text]
>
> instead.

I share your preference.

> This could also obviate the need for dual working tricks based on
> testing PDFFEAT. I didn't feel confident whether extending the s.tmac
> repertoire of commands was really my choice.

groff_ms(7) (and of course ms.ms) documents many extensions.  Some are
Berkeley's, some are Unix V10's, and some are ours.

Further, groff ms doesn't work in compatibility mode, so a hard-bitten
legacy document written in old-school ".dsabcd" style won't work anyway.
I've had some exchanges on this subject with Clem Cole, who is using
groff to render some early Unix System V-era man(7) and ms(7) documents
with groff, to incomplete success.

Reinforcing existing good idioms is desirable.

Relieving the document author of having to repeat themselves is too.

I largely liked Keith's `XN` and `XH` extensions, which reduced the
amount of labor required by the document author to get section headings
into the table of contents.

(Why only "largely"?  I don't completely understand the motivation for
`XN-REPLACEMENT`, when one can replace `XN` itself.  And I regret that
there's no ability to suppress the leader dots, as one might desire for
bridgeheads.  Keith also parameterized `TC-LEADER` as a string, but it's
reset only at each TOC in toto, and so is not configurable for the
bridgehead application.)

> The pdfms bug was the "breeding ground" for the code in this bug, and
> allowed you to straighten  out the numerous bugs in .asciify upon
> which this code relies. So, it does supercede the original bug.

Okay.  Is there any reason not to resolve that one?

>> Revising Summary; see
>> [https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2026-04/msg00061.html
>> mailing list cogitation].
>
> I'm happy. Although I must admit to being a bit flummoxed, but if you
> are happy to zoom in and correct my mistaken tags, I shan't worry.

Doesn't bother me to tidy them up.  I can easily keep pace with the
influx of groff Savannah tickets, as evidenced by the fact that I've
submitted 649 of the 1,801 filed to date.



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