Re: [Groff] Re: Simplifying groff documentation

[Michael(tm) Smith]

Gunnar Ritter <address@hidden>, 2006-12-25 21:17 +0100:

> Real *roff is hardly the problem since it has supported the
> two-character requests (except .do) for more than thirty years
> now. The issues are with scripts that convert manual pages or
> build indexes for them or whatever. I would say a program that
> claims to read manual pages is broken enough to be irrelevant
> if it cannot at least handle
> 
>   .br .fi .nf .sp .ig .in .ti
> 
> Also it must have basic tbl support.

I agree completely about the tbl support. I have seen at least one
guide to man-page authoring that recommends not using tbl markup
-- I guess because developers of some (or most) of the non-roff
mechanisms for displaying man pages (mandb or whatever) have never
bothered to add tbl support to them. The right solution to the
problem is for them to add that support, not for users to avoid
adding tables to their man pages.

  --Mike

-- 
Michael(tm) Smith
http://www.w3.org/People/Smith/