Re: [Groff] inconsistency between .R and \*R in man.tmac

[Clarke Echols]

Tadziu Hoffmann wrote:

> I thought the correct way to handle this was
> 
>   .fp 1 R NewCenturySchlbk-Roman

I used eroff in my production work, and we defined font positions as:

   .fp 1 XR
   .fp 2 XI
   .fp 3 XB
   .fp 4 CB

The directive:

   .fp 1 R

refers to Times Roman.


> and from then on both \f1 and \fR would refer to the same font.

Not in the HP man macros, it wouldn't.
 
> Anyway, this should mostly be hidden from the user:
> macros use low-level requests like ".ft 2", and the
> user uses high-level macros like ".I".

That's the whole purpose of macros -- remove the nasty details from the
mind of the user so only the intended form is specified, leaving details
to the machine-level specialists.  Few users are interested in whether
it's Schoolbook, New-Century, Times Roman, or anything else.  They just
want what they perceive is a Roman-like font.

I perceive that too much "creeping featurism" only adds complexity that
shouldn't be needed with straight-forward coding.  I always found it easier
to follow the intent of AT&T originators of troff by starting a phrase on a
new line, and all font changes started on a new line; hence using font
macros, etc. at start of line instead of the less intuitive escape
sequences to expand a macro inside of running lines of text.  Why should
I clutter my mind with memorized escape sequences beyond \s-1 ... \s+1,
\(em, etc.?  It's a lot easier to start a new line with ".<macro_name> args"
than to type start-exit escapes/quotes around a macro expansion at
mid-line.
Clarke