Re: [Groff] gropdf and pdfroff

[Werner LEMBERG]

> As a *roff user since the mid-1970s I am all too aware that to be
> good at this you have to know and _understand_ a lot of details
> about the document models (as represented by the different macro
> collections: man, mm, mom, ms ...)  and the fundamental commands,
> registers, etc.  To do even the simplest document requires
> much-too-much expertise for the rank beginner.

Indeed.

> The other day I was thinking of creating, as a first step, a set of
> overlay macros for things like groff_mm (my macro package of choice)
> to ease the burden of learning and understanding it:
>
>         .mm_AbstractStart  .AS
>         .mm_AbstractEnd    .AE
>         .mm_Approval       .AV
>         .mm_AuthorsTitle   .AT
>         .mm_Author         .AU
>                 :           :
>         .mm_PageHeader     .PH
>         .mm_PageHeaderExit .PX
>         .mm_Paragraph      .P
>         .mm_PictureStart   .PS
>         .mm_PictureEnd     .PE
>                 :           :

Since mm isn't intended to be used with any other main macro package,
I would omit the `mm_' prefix completely.  Besides that, having
slightly longer but more verbose commands are a good thing.  It's
really simple to provide such a `front end' by yourself; simply use
the `.als' request for that purpose:

        .als AbstractStart  AS
        .als AbstractEnd    AE
        .als Approval       AV
        .als AuthorsTitle   AT
        .als Author         AU
                :           :
        .als PageHeader     PH
        .als PageHeaderExit PX
        .als Paragraph      P
        .als PictureStart   PS
        .als PictureEnd     PE
                :           :


    Werner