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Re: Groff macro to make .UR and .UE links clickable in PDF?


From: B 9
Subject: Re: Groff macro to make .UR and .UE links clickable in PDF?
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2020 23:10:08 -0700
User-agent: s-nail v14.9.11

"James K. Lowden" <jklowden@schemamania.org> wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Jun 2020 08:59:17 +0200
> Jan Stary <hans@stare.cz> wrote:
> > I don't think something like that belongs into mdoc(7) at all.
> > It's a "semantic markup language for formatting manual pages".
> > Let it be what is is, and has been for decades.
> 
> I think there's an incorrect assumption embedded in your answer.  To
> say footnotes don't belong in manpages is to assume a presentation
> formation that doesn't need/support footnotes.  The only form that
> *might* be true of is electronic, because footnotes surely "belong" on
> printed pages.  

I think Jan Stary mistook my words as asking for a way for users to
specify the presentation in mdoc as opposed to extending mdoc's
presentation abilities.

Since mdoc is a "semantic markup language", I presumed it would have
some way to specify a hyperlink in running text that won't (to the
best of mdoc's abilities) interfere with the flow of the text. The
exact implementation would be chosen by mdoc based on what output
device is selected. It could be something like this:

   HTML, use a link;
   nroff, drop the URL;¹
   PDF, use both a link and a footnote in case it gets printed.

For printed output, the tried and true method for the last
few centuries has been footnotes, so it makes sense for mdoc to
support that, if possible.

But, as I said, I have no idea how hard it would be to add footnote
output to mdoc. It might not even be feasible.

Also, I'm more concerned at the moment that I can't find any way to
attach hyperlinks to text in the middle of sentences using mdoc. Lk's
addition of a newline and colon and insistence on always printing the
URL makes me think it is the wrong tool. Is there another option I'm
missing? Perhaps implementing a new macro similar to Lk?

Thank you,

--b9

_____
¹ Or, is it possible to have footnotes in screen form? Maybe using
  bracketed numbers [42]. 



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