[Groff] Re: Simplifying groff documentation

[Werner LEMBERG]

> > I'm willing to restrict the involved macros to something doclifter
> > can understand (and this stuff could be then documented properly
> > in a guide).
> 
> That would be a large step in a good direction, and one that would
> benefit other viewers as well and make Gunnarr happy.  I will
> cooperate by helping you develop the "safe set" and helping write
> the guide to it, and by enhancing doclifter in any way that's
> reasonable to keep that safe set from being too restrictive.

It seems that we can do a decent job by adding a small set of
additional macros to man; this would have the benefit of getting a
clear conversion with doclifter, and a standardized interface for
future man pages (which current ones might adopt also).

> > BTW, what about -mdoc?
> 
> That would work fine, as long as you don't have to use .Xo/.Xc;
> doclifter has a weakness there, and it's one that I fear is not
> going to be easy to fix.

Interesting.  Is there something on the groff side we could do to
improve that?

> I think -mdoc is one of the two feasible solutions we are converging
> on.

Well, this means a lot of work and should be done perhaps only for man
pages which would look really ugly otherwise.

> The other would be to define .OP and .SY as discussed in previous 
> email, and teach doclifter to interpret those.

Yep.


    Werner