[Groff] A few questions about -mdoc

[Florent Rougon]

[ Perhaps this would be better suited for address@hidden, but as I am
  quite new to groff, I could well have missed something. Don't hesitate
  to redirect me there if you think it is more appropriate. ]

Hi,

I recently used the nice -mdoc package to write a manual page and have a
few minor problems with it.

First, I use:

  .Dt TTX 1 "FontTools Manual"

but the string "FontTools Manual" does not appear in any formatted
output (I tested ascii and dvi). Is it the expected behavior?

Second, groff_mdoc(7) says:

  If the '.Os' macro is not present, the bottom left corner of the
  manual page will be ugly.

Well, if I do that, the bottom left corner of the manual page contains
"BSD". I don't know if that is what you call "ugly", but it is
definitely not the result I was expecting. :-)

Third, groff_mdoc(7) says:

     .Pp  The '.Pp' paragraph command may be used to specify a line space
          where necessary.  The macro is not necessary after a '.Sh' or '.Ss'
          macro or before a '.Bl' or '.Bd' macro (which both assert a vertical
          distance unless the -compact flag is given).

but it appears to be wrong (I checked both the ascii and dvi outputs): I
have two subsections created with .Ss, one of which (General options) is
directly followed by a .Bl while the other one (Dump options) is
directly followed by some text; in both cases, there is no vertical
space in the ascii and dvi outputs after the subsection title. Even if I
add a .Pp on the line following the .Ss macro (this happens for the two
subsections and in both output types).

Fourth, there is a minor problem in groff_mdoc(7) where it says:

  In the example for the make command line arguments (see What's in a
  Name), the keep prevented nroff from placing up the flag and the
  argument on separate lines.

Actually, the keep was used to prevent "target ..." from being split
across lines, which I don't think should be called "the flag and the
argument".

Finally (I think I solved this last problem myself, but as I am not a
groff guru, my solution is perhaps suboptimal; please comment in this
case), the headers of my manual page have "BSD General Commands Manual"
in the middle.

After a bit of grepping, I noticed that if I add
".ds volume-operating-system Debian" to /etc/groff/mdoc.local, then the
string reads "Debian General Commands Manual", which is much closer to
what I am looking for. I will suggest the Debian groff maintainer to add
this line in the default configuration if you don't see any problem with
it.

I am using groff 1.18 on Debian sid, from the groff Debian package
version 1.18.1-15. The manual page I used to assert the facts presented
in this mail can be downloaded here:

  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi/ttx.1?bug=249673&msg=3&att=1

Thanks for any help on these issues.

-- 
Florent