Re: [Groff] Heirloom TBL problem

[Blake McBride]

1.  I do use Heirloom troff and I often use MM.

2.  The current behavior is wrong, period.  The fact that changes are being
made to Heirloom at all proves that it isn't a think of absolute perfection
- not to be touched.  If this issue were reported back when MM was being
developed, they would have fixed it.

3.  The proposed solutions are awkward, unnatural, and something one has to
constantly remember.

I think either tbl should use the .ll value, or the W register _after_ the
load and _without_ having to set it from the command line.  .ll works with
MM in Heirloom and groff.  Tbl should too.  It doesn't make sense to
require all kinds of hoops just to get something as basic as .ll to work.

Thanks!

Blake McBride


On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 9:45 AM, <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hi Ralph,
>
> > groff_mm(7):
> >
> >     PGFORM [linelength [pagelength [pageoffset [1]]]]
>
> thank you!
>
> If one *uses* heirlooms -mm macros and *really* needs that feature it
> could be added.  Otherwise I would agree with Tadziu that initially setting
> W should be sufficient.  The -ms macros had register LL, there must be a
> reason that such a feature had not been put into AT&T's -mm (typography
> rules?).
>
> (The macro name PGFORM would than need a ".do xflag 3" at the beginning of
> a heirloom roff document since with default settings only two character
> identifiers are enabled.)
>
> --Carsten
>
>