Re: [PATCH 4/5] man/captoinfo.1m: Revise.

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sun, Sep 24, 2023 at 07:40:47PM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
> 
> At 2023-09-24T19:01:09-0400, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> > On Sun, Sep 24, 2023 at 02:14:43PM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > ...
> > > * Increase precision of discussion.  For instance, speak of standard
> > >   I/O streams more explicitly, by reference to the concept instead
> > >   of C standard library symbol names.  As another example, an
> > >   environment variable's name is not the same thing as its contents,
> > >   and should not be discussed as if it is.  A third: talking about
> > >   "IBM PC high-half graphics" in reference to CCSID (code page) 437.
> > >   We can do better than the dissipated and slovenly discourse of
> > >   Unix terminal rooms of the past, where code cowboys jockeyed for
> > >   status with the hermeticism of their utterances.
> > 
> > fwiw, that section was by Eric Raymond in 1995-1996
> 
> The language of which I was complaining didn't seem like your style (of
> which there are ample exhibits on invisible-island.net), so I guessed
> (correctly, it seems) that you wouldn't feel my invective aimed at you.
> 
> > > * Refer to XENIX in the past tense; it seems to be a dead product.
> > 
> > agreed - I used in in 1986 or 1987.
> 
> I was still in the kiddie pool with 8-bit micros in that time frame, but
> I remember craving bigger iron.  :D  XENIX was the first Unix I ever
> heard of, but the first one I _used_ was a near-workalike called OS-9.
> 
> > > * Capitalize "ACS" (presumably a DEC reference?).
> > 
> > as I read it, that's "alternate character set", though how XENIX used
> > the feature, I don't know (about half the time, I can answer these
> > questions with a manual from bitsavers - the other half, no luck).
> 
> Yeah, I dithered on that point.  I find use of ACS in the DEC sense
> tough to square with the use of an encoding with no shift state and no
> modes.  The whole point of the DEC mechanism, I vaguely grasp, was to be
> able to switch in partial replacements of the 8-bit code space (GL and
> GR--that stuff).  My grasp of the details is feeble.  ACS might be a
> separate feature from those...?

It might - whether it was DEC or AT&T (or BSD) for "acs", I don't know.
I was more interested in keyboards than escape sequences in the ~1980
time frame.
 
> > > * Drop explicit indentation from `TP` call in "FILES" section.  The
> > >   ncurses man pages seem to follow no consistent format here (cf.
> > >   infocmp.1m, ncurses.3x, panel.3x, term.5, and terminfo.tail, each
> > >   taking a different approach).  I choose the simplest.
> > 
> > hmm - TP wants to indent everything by 8 columns, which in nested
> > lists eats a lot of space.
> 
> Strictly, it's 7n indentation on terminals and 7.2n on typesetters.
> But, yes, that does put the first indented character in column 8 (after
> whatever the base paragraph indentation is, which you might be happy to
> learn is coming _down_ from 7n/7.2 to 5n in groff 1.24[1]).
> 
> `RS` and `RE` are relatively lightly used in the ncurses man pages, but
> they do enable nesting with control of what I'm at pains to term the
> "inset amount", because it is handled distinctly from paragraph
> indentation.  groff_man_style(7) in groff 1.23.0 explores and
> demonstrates these issues carefully, motivated largely by my own
> frustration with learning the interaction of these features in 2017.
> 
> At any rate, I would point out that there's no nesting going on in the
> "FILES" sections of the ncurses man pages.  I readily concede that the
> "standard indentation" of 7n/7.2n[2] isn't fit for every application;
> that's why `RS`, `TP`, and `IP` permit its override.

agreed
 
> If you could shed some more light on what your concerns are here, I
> might make better guesses when preparing patches.

heh - mostly I start hanging indents with TP, then notice that it's
using a lot of space and then fill in ".TP 5" to cut that down.

(I've noticed that sometimes TP inherits its parameter from the
previous use - making the explicit parameter unnecessary - sometimes not,
but haven't delved into that to see why).

In a quick check, I see that I mixed RS/TP 3 in user_caps,
probably motivated by the relatively short names used in the
leading part.
 
> Regards,
> Branden
> 
> [1] 
> https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/NEWS?id=330f90485dfa57c723bd0e4b918f170b8f922a78#n75
> [2] ...or whatever the user--meaning the reader, not the man page
>     author--overrides it with via customization of the `IN` register.



-- 
Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
https://invisible-island.net

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