Re: [Groff] Introduction to groff in french

[GregExp]

Hi Bertrand, 

thank you for your answer. All two ideas are very good, and will make
the first paragraph more powerful. 

I am afraid, I would not found the right words for it, because I'm not a
-mom user (not yet).

If you want, write it yourself (I suppose, you are french-speaking).
Just click on "modifier" on the right, and you can write it down. 

Thanks a lot.
Grégoire


Le mercredi 22 octobre 2014 à 02:11 +0200, Bertrand Garrigues a écrit :
> Hi Gregoire,
> 
> Just read your introduction, good work!
> 
> On Tue, Oct 21 2014 at 11:01:40 PM, Peter Schaffter <address@hidden> wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 21, 2014, GregExp wrote:
> >> I could take the chapter 3.1 (terminal)and 3.2 (éditeur de texte en
> >> console) after the chapter 3.3 (wich describe the  "normal" using of
> >> groff) of even at the very end, after chapter 7, as "special using of
> >> groff". 
> >
> > That's probably the best way to deal with it.  From my own
> > experience of leading people through groff for the first time, I
> > always begin with: "Step one, fire up a text editor."  The basic
> > learning flow is:
> >
> > - fire up a text editor (doesn't matter if it's a console or GUI interface)
> >     - demonstrate basic groff usage with some simple text
> >         - introduce command line and options
> >             - process the demonstration
> 
> I agree with Peter that parts 3.1 and 3.2 take a bit too much space in
> your introduction.  Here are a few more suggestions.
> 
> First, at the beginning (before chapter 1): I think you could briefly
> explain the concept of macro packages here (without changing anything to
> "5. Choisir sa boîte à outils").  As you said "Groff s'utilise donc de
> manière analogue à latex", you could develop a bit further and make a
> parallel between groff/mom and tex/latex, and maybe emphasizes that mom
> is the simpliest package.  Why insist on the macros packages and on mom?
> I have two reasons (from my own experience):
> 
> - People will compare groff to tex/latex, arguing that groff ("ah, that
>   legacy software for man pages") has an obscure syntax and that latex
>   is much easier.  Therefore, it could be a good idea to write a few
>   words on the fact that convenient macro packages exist.
> 
> - When I first used groff a few years ago, I picked 'ms' because it
>   seems the easiest package to learn and because I didn't know the
>   existence mom.  Neither the groff.pdf generated from the texinfo file
>   nor the site (at that time) did mention mom.  Later I switched to mom
>   and of course it was easier.  I don't see any point for a complete
>   beginner to start with something else than mom.
> 
> Secondly, I feel that your introduction lacks a concrete, real example
> that shows groff's ability to produce beautiful documents.  Maybe you
> could use one of the example files shipped in the groff package?  If I
> refer to the list of files of the Ubuntu 14.04 groff package, several
> example files are installed.  You could suggest the reader to
> regenerate, for example, sample_docs.pdf with:
> 
>   groff -m mom -Tpdf sample_docs.mom > sample_docs.pdf
> 
> or even
> 
>   pdfmom sample_docs.mom > sample_docs.pdf
> 
> if you want to briefly introduce the pdfmom script (sample_docs.mom will
> not need it though, if I am not mistaken there are no pdf links in it).
> 
> Regards,
> 
> --
> Bertrand Garrigues