[Groff] Re: groff + mp

[Michail Vidiassov]

Dear Werner,

On Fri, 10 Feb 2006, Werner LEMBERG wrote:

> > Time to make a bug report to metapost people?
>
> Please do.
>
> > I see a difference in approaches.  You are after metapost for groff
> > (metapost pictures in groff document), while I am after groff for
> > metapost (groff-made labels in metapost output).
>
> Exactly.  Thus my remark to merge both approaches into a single
> script.  To make such a script user-friendly is probably the most
> work...
>
> > I want us to try to push groff support into the next metapost
> > version.

There are 2 options.

1. Recognize that there are 2 users of troff labels in metapost.
 teTeX 3 comes with a completely broken trfonts.map - no one noticed.
 The scripts are user-friendly for us.
 Since I run metapost from make for the most time,
 running one more script is not a problem.
 If a worthy third man needs groff+metapost -
 he (not she) will come to this list to grep the archives or ask around.
 (80-ths - early 90-ths style of approach, when men were men and wrote
  their own device drivers, while the computers were big and terminals
  green ;)
 In this case we can try to  push some patches into metapost and TeX fonts
 system just to avoid repatching/recondiguring new versions as they appear.
 (As I have already done with my previous patch to dmp, that
  enabled groff support, but did not jettison the remnants of the support
  for Ma Bell troff. BTW. I  think the latter support was broken
  netertheless. Can you check?)
2. Do it the proper way, for the benefit of humanity.
 Formulate what we want to be changed in metapost output.
 Say it English, sed and/or awk.
 Make some examples of original and patched metapost output.
 Show the results to metapost people.
 If they agree - fix metapost by making it call the scripts while
  processing the file or by patching the web sources of metapost itself.
 I am not in any haste following this route, since I can not write web
  and have difficulties reading it.

               Sincerely, Michail