Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

At 2017-04-30T19:34:20-0400, James K. Lowden wrote: > On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 01:15:05 -0400 > "G. Branden Robinson" wrote: > > C adopted designated initializers, a sop to those who can't recall > > what order a struct's fields come in. > > I guess you're implying that

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 01:15:05 -0400 "G. Branden Robinson" wrote: > the benefit to the user is relatively few keystrokes above those > > needed for the text. > > Did you write your DocBook-based user guide in ed? > > Nothing has come close to saving me more

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

> > *By mixing low-level roff(7) syntax into your mdoc(7) document, like > defining* *your own macros, you gratuitiously endanger portability.* ... *You are being selfish. If you forcefully redefine standard macros, the > result* *will look unnatural to *everyone else** Some documents I

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi, Ingo wrote: > Manuals tend to have so much font jumping anyway > that they are often not very visually pleasing and look noisy. That's true. And my crude understanding of typography is that 푖푡푎푙푖푐 is normally used for emphasis, with 퐛퐨퐥퐝 being kept in reserve for that odd time when

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi John, John Gardner wrote on Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 10:50:23PM +1000: > .de XR > . Xr \\fB\\$1\\fP \\$2 > .. That's a bad idea for three reasons. 1. It already stands out by the (N), additional font change is not required. Manuals tend to have so much font jumping anyway that they

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Chained commands are easier to follow with syntax highlighting: [image: Inline images 1] But I'm still in agreement with Ralph here, at least with regards to complex formatting. Lines like `.It Ar radius` are fine, but the Ns and No commands... ugh. Even when formatting with mdoc, I find it

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi Ingo, > > > .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Pf = Ar value > > > > This has reminded me of one reason I didn't get on with mdoc. Only > > the `Fl' is obviously mdoc's, due to the `.' invocation. The rest > > are a mix of command and data, but without any sigil one's left > > guessing unless the command

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi Ralph, Ralph Corderoy wrote on Sat, Apr 29, 2017 at 03:47:53PM +0100: > Ingo Schwarze wrote: >> .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Pf = Ar value > This has reminded me of one reason I didn't get on with mdoc. > Only the `Fl' is obviously mdoc's, due to the `.' invocation. > The rest are a mix of command and

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi Branden, > > The troff system was designed to be typed at a keyboard. The > > dot-on-the-left rule might be ugly, and the requests/macros terse, > > but the benefit to the user is relatively few keystrokes above those > > needed for the text. ... > Nothing has come close to saving me more

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi Ingo, > things are actually much simpler even for describing such unusually > complicated syntax: > > .Oo : Ns Fl c Ar cc-addr : Oc > .Eo [: Fl c Ar cc-addr Ec :] > > .Fl S Ar var Ns Op = Ns Ar value > .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Pf = Ar value This has reminded me of one reason I didn't get on with

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

i wrote: |Ingo Schwarze wrote: ||Steffen Nurpmeso wrote on Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 08:19:21PM +0200: ... ||P.S. ||Only bacause i'm replying anyway and it's just five lines: | |Sure. | ||> .Op : Ns Fl c Ar cc-addr Ns \&: ||> .Fl S Ar var Ns Op Ns = Ns Ar value Ns ||

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Deri James wrote: |On Thu 27 Apr 2017 23:48:29 Steffen Nurpmeso wrote: |> Terrible, see the spacing errors surrounding the command list |> before the "Substitution" heading! Not your fault of course, but |> gr... |> |> --steffen | |Well, turns out it WAS

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

This touches on something I experienced recently. I wanted to write a JavaScript module that would help developers generate manual-pages for their projects (because there's a searing lack of manpages in the Node community...). I ended up ditching that idea when I realised developers would still

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

At 2017-04-27T23:38:23-0400, James K. Lowden wrote: > On Wed, 26 Apr 2017 09:46:43 -0400 > "G. Branden Robinson" wrote: > > > 1. The slavish devotion to two-letter names for things, which like the > >man macro package and the oldest parts of *roff itself, make

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

On Thu, 27 Apr 2017, James K. Lowden wrote: The troff system was designed to be typed at a keyboard. The dot-on-the-left rule might be ugly, and the requests/macros terse, but the benefit to the user is relatively few keystrokes above those needed for the text. A corollary of this is that

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

On Wed, 26 Apr 2017 09:46:43 -0400 "G. Branden Robinson" wrote: > 1. The slavish devotion to two-letter names for things, which like the >man macro package and the oldest parts of *roff itself, make it >self-anti-documenting. Having written one user guide

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

On Thu 27 Apr 2017 23:48:29 Steffen Nurpmeso wrote: > Terrible, see the spacing errors surrounding the command list > before the "Substitution" heading! Not your fault of course, but > gr... > > --steffen Well, turns out it WAS my fault! Bug in gropdf, will commit after more testing.

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Deri James wrote: |On Thu 27 Apr 2017 20:12:09 Ingo Schwarze wrote: |> Does that still apply to |> |> view-source:http://man.openbsd.org/ksh | |compared with a PDF version:- | |http://chuzzlewit.co.uk/WebManPDF.pl/man:/1/ksh Terrible, see the spacing

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Ingo Schwarze wrote: |Steffen Nurpmeso wrote on Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 08:19:21PM +0200: |> the HTML output of mandoc used repeated per-paragraph style |> directives and a CSS file, which caused enormous bloat, last |> time i tried. | |Does that still apply to | |

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

On Thu 27 Apr 2017 20:12:09 Ingo Schwarze wrote: > Does that still apply to > > view-source:http://man.openbsd.org/ksh compared with a PDF version:- http://chuzzlewit.co.uk/WebManPDF.pl/man:/1/ksh

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote on Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 08:19:21PM +0200: > the HTML output of mandoc used repeated per-paragraph style > directives and a CSS file, which caused enormous bloat, last > time i tried. Does that still apply to view-source:http://man.openbsd.org/ksh I spent a few

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

At 2017-04-27T04:00:29+, Bjarni Ingi Gislason wrote: > On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 11:41:22AM -0400, G. Branden Robinson wrote: > > At 2017-04-24T16:22:37+0100, Ralph Corderoy wrote: > > > .SM affect the next input line as it uses an input trap, `.it'. `\c' > > > doesn't make an input line

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote on Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 02:21:10PM +0200: > You have a notion of "callable" and "parsed", and you should be > aware of that or you introduce errors which are hard to find. Wrong. Just assume everything is callable. Actually, mandoc warns if you use the name of a

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

"G. Branden Robinson" wrote: Sorry for answering so late, my daily routine has shifted to night again, almost sunset, and that really makes me frustrated. |At 2017-04-25T20:19:21+0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote: ... |>|> c. Show people a mapping from groff's

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

At 2017-04-26T09:27:56-0400, G. Branden Robinson wrote: > > It seems to me that b) is fine, a) is very problematic because it > > severely harms portability, > > You're making a testable assertion here. > > 1. Portability is not harmed if extended man macros are inlined in pages >where

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

At 2017-04-26T15:03:33+0100, Ralph Corderoy wrote: > Hi Branden, > > > http://code.swtch.com/plan9port/ is a 404 for me. > > Do you have an up-to-date link? > > https://github.com/9fans/plan9port#readme Gracias, señor! Some days I need someone to JFGTFM. ;-) Regards, Branden signature.asc

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

The BitKeeper man page macros use this sort of construct a lot. -Original Message- From: "Doug McIlroy" <d...@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2017 4:00pm To: groff@gnu.org Subject: Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages > .TP > .B \-scale \c >

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi Branden, > http://code.swtch.com/plan9port/ is a 404 for me. > Do you have an up-to-date link? https://github.com/9fans/plan9port#readme Cheers, Ralph.

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

At 2017-04-25T20:19:21+0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote: > Btw., if you want really clean man(7) you should point people to > the really good guys, e.g., the plan9port manuals are a phantastic > example of minimalistic and pure pages. I'd love to, as I'm the sort who's still excited by Plan 9 (and

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

At 2017-04-25T16:52:20+0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote: > G. Branden Robinson wrote on Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 07:14:58AM -0400: > > > No, what I really want is a TP-ish macro that lets you break the tag > > across multiple input lines, so the writer doesn't have to use font > > escapes. > > > > If that

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

> .TP > .B \-scale \c > .IR xfac [, yfac ] Very clever. I wish I'd thought of it when I was editing the v7 manual. Then it would have become a standard idiom. Has nobody tried this during the nearly 40 years since? Doug

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Ingo Schwarze wrote: |G. Branden Robinson wrote on Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 07:14:58AM -0400: ... |> If that means a new macro, I'm fine with that. ... |For man(7), introducing new macros would be worse. There, it would |utterly break portability because other implementations

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi, G. Branden Robinson wrote on Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 07:14:58AM -0400: > No, what I really want is a TP-ish macro that lets you break the tag > across multiple input lines, so the writer doesn't have to use font > escapes. > > If that means a new macro, I'm fine with that. I think that plan

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

"G. Branden Robinson" wrote: |At 2017-04-24T18:29:57+0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote: ... |I entirely agree with the virtues of semantic of "presentation"-based |markup. However, this could be mitigated by encouraging a consistent |style in groff_man(7) itself. Some

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

At 2017-04-25T07:04:27+0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote: > Hi, > > G. Branden Robinson wrote on Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 09:22:25PM -0400: > > At 2017-04-24T18:29:57+0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote: > >> G. Branden Robinson wrote on Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 11:41:22AM -0400: > > >>> to the more readable (and, I

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi, G. Branden Robinson wrote on Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 09:22:25PM -0400: > At 2017-04-24T18:29:57+0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote: >> G. Branden Robinson wrote on Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 11:41:22AM -0400: >>> to the more readable (and, I submit, more writable-by-the-novice): >>> >>> .TP >>> .B \-scale \c

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

At 2017-04-24T18:29:57+0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote: > Hi, > > G. Branden Robinson wrote on Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 11:41:22AM -0400: > > > to the more readable (and, I submit, more writable-by-the-novice): > > > > .TP > > .B \-scale \c > > .IR xfac [, yfac ] > > Multiply the horizontal and vertical

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi, G. Branden Robinson wrote on Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 11:41:22AM -0400: > to the more readable (and, I submit, more writable-by-the-novice): > > .TP > .B \-scale \c > .IR xfac [, yfac ] > Multiply the horizontal and vertical window size by YIKES, that sounds like an absolutely terrible idea!

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

At 2017-04-24T16:22:37+0100, Ralph Corderoy wrote: > .SM affect the next input line as it uses an input trap, `.it'. `\c' > doesn't make an input line continue to the next as far as input traps > are concerned; groff has .itc for that. So the .SM is over by the `)'. That's exactly the hack I

Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi Branden, > .SM > .B IFS\^\c > ) > > I think the intention here was to get back to the normal-size roman > font after "IFS" without introducing a stretchable space (hence \c) > but still leave some room between the small bold IFS and the closing > parenthesis, hance the hair space

[Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

Hi folks, The ksh93 man page has the following in its source: .SS Field Splitting. After parameter expansion and command substitution, the results of substitutions are scanned for the field separator characters (those found in .SM .B IFS\^\c ) and split into