Re: [Groff] troff syntax and useability

[Rob Scovell]

In a more humble way, this is what WordPerfect offered to the word processing world with its 'reveal codes' feature. The typesetting engine was better than the one in Word and there were quite a few typographical niceties available to the user. I am obviously not claiming that WordPerfect is a serious typesetting product but it was a definite player for things like newsletters etc. The macro language was pretty powerful -- I knew someone who wrote a VAT (UK goods and services tax) accounting system using WP macros.

It is a great pity that it languishes behind Word in general popularity.

On this subject, it would be fantastic if FrameMaker could have something like this, perhaps based on MIF.

Or even further into the realm of fantasy ... Frame with embeddable troff, with the troff part able to pick up Frame variables. That would be great for generating interesting running heads.

Is anyone from Adobe listening? (Although I understand that user requests are only noted if they come from Boeing ...)

Rob

On Friday, August 30, 2002, at 10:54  AM, Peter Schaffter wrote:

> Unfortunately, Quoin proved too buggy and we had to scrap it, but I've
> always wondered why this obvious solution to the "which is better --
> WYSIWYG page layout or Unix-style text processing" hasn't been pursued.