Message-Id: Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET)" Organization: INTI To: Hans-Bernhard Broeker , Eli Zaretskii , djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 11:15:57 +0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Man pages (was Re: Ispell and pipes) References: In-reply-to: Precedence: bulk Eli Zaretskii , djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com, wrote: > On Wed, 22 Jul 1998, Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET) wrote: > > > Yes I mean that. Is very difficult to read the man pages with all the > > deletes floating around. > > I wouldn't say 'less page.1' is 'difficult'. Heck, even the venerable > old 'list.com' by Vernon Buerg manages to display those texts correctly. > Or even a simple 'more > No offence meant, but 'very difficult' would be something entirely > different, IMHO. Hmm... that's getting hot ]:-)). Loading an info file with info or RHIDE is even *easier* then if you think like that retract your self about the topic of distributing info files in UNIX format ;-)))) Please understand my point: You say that info files must be in DOS format to avoid complaints from newbies. Ok, I disagree but I think is a good point. Now: I say man pages must be in plain text format (I don't say the others must be supresed, just add .txt versions) because you need extra tools to read it. The situation is worst. > > Yes I know, but a not a new user. You said in this list (twice one to > > Gili and one to me) that info files are shipped in DOS format because > > some DOS editors fails to break the lines in '\n'. Here is worst, > > I don't know about even one DOS editor that parses the delete > > characters ;-). > > Well, who said you're meant to edit info files or postprocessed .man > pages, at all? Nobody, but you say the users have this idea. > It's generally wrong to do so, in both cases. I agree and that what I said when we discussed the same thing about info files. According to you this argument wasn't valid and now you are using it :-) > The only > reason that makes it necessary to explicitly handle this error for .info > files is that the format is not just text, but also contains things like > absolute file positions (in the index table). Those have to be fixed after > a file has been tampered with. With man pages, that can't really > happen, so there's nothing to fix. > > And if you really want to edit those files, I never said I want to do it. > there's always the little tool > that knows how to remove backspace-character sequences from a text file. Last night I wrote one in a few minutes just to test if all works like I think. > I > just don't remember the name off the top of my head, but it came with cawf > (a poor-man's groff for man pages). > > And of course, as the author of one (somewhat popular) DOS editor, it's > finally *your* task to make your editor handle backspace-enhanced ASCII > files properly, if you want it done :-) I wrote the small tool because I'm planing to allow users to read man pages :-) Eli please, don't get me wrong. I can use man pages, they are fine for me but I think you must be coherent: 1) If you say: info files must be in a format readable by *any* DOS editor. 2) Then I say: man pages too. I fail to understand why (1) is so clear to you (isn't clear for me) and you don't agree with (2). Even when (2) is even worst than (1) (there are a lot of DOS tools that support \n as end of line, none that supports "backspace enhanced"). SET ------------------------------------ 0 -------------------------------- Visit my home page: http://set-soft.home.ml.org/ or http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/6552/ Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET). (Electronics Engineer) Alternative e-mail: set-soft AT usa DOT net set AT computer DOT org ICQ: 2951574 Address: Curapaligue 2124, Caseros, 3 de Febrero Buenos Aires, (1678), ARGENTINA TE: +(541) 759 0013