Re: [Groff] Re: begin page blues

[Miklos Somogyi]

On 20/02/2006, at 7:14 PM, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> >
>
> > Currently I hide the \Y in a macro, followed by .sp -1 and use the
> > macro instead of \Y in the main text.  It's not a tragedy, just
> > finding a hiding place for every PS insert, if indeed this is the
> > only to do it, is quite a bit of inconvenience.
>
> Hmm, what you really want is a request equivalents to \X and \Y,
> right?

It's a bit like that when the great hunter makes an offer to the great 
chief.
The chief talks a lot. "What does he say", "What does he say?",.. asks 
the great hunter.
Finally the interpreter responds: "He says yes."

Yes, Werner, this is exactly what I want :-)

> This should be rather straightforward to implement (and IMHO
> it's always a good idea to have both escapes and requests for the same
> thing).  Can you suggest request names for those two escapes?

Werner, I am delighted that you are willing to do these things.
Please give me a week or so, I may come up with a few ideas for your
consideration re what to involve.

E.g. a version that uses save/restore rather than just pushing/popping 
a dictionary,
that may allocate .sp space for the PS, keeps it on the page, bypasses 
it
altogether if the page is not wanted (so as to avoid .so requests 
reading-in
images unnecessarily), the ability to mix ps and groff in the macro 
(that requires
the definition of an end-of-ps, other than ..

I realize that all these things can be done by the user when \Y's 
equivalent is implemented,
but it would be great if groff could anticipate potential applications 
and lend a hand.
Btw, if you implement \Y's equivalent, then there is not much point in 
doing \X.
Whether it is one line or more, no matter.

I do believe that groff can be very advantageously partnered with PS, 
especially
in engineering, where pic would not meet even basic requirements,
therefore a few steps to facilitate its easy integration would be 
very-very welcome.

Miklos