Re: All caps .TH page title

[G. Branden Robinson]

At 2022-07-23T11:51:04+0100, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> Doug wrote:
> > > Doing it for groff-related man pages only would simply brand groff
> > > as quirky.
> ...
> > And, as I shall never cease to remind people, the man(7) `PT` and
> > `BT` traps are replaceable, thanks to the efforts of Larry Kollar
> > around 20 years ago.
> 
> Are you saying a man-page author should work around groff's increasing
> deviancy by adding code to replace those two traps if it's being
> formatted by groff?

groff_man(7) (from Git HEAD):

   Hooks
       Two macros, both GNU extensions, are called internally by the
       groff man package to format page headers and footers and can be
       redefined by the administrator in a site’s man.local file (see
       section “Files” below).  The presentation of .TH above describes
       the default headers and footers.  Because these macros are hooks
       for groff man internals, man pages have no reason to call them.
       Such hook definitions will likely consist of “.sp” and “.tl”
       requests.  They must also increase the page length with “.pl”
       requests in continuous rendering mode; .PT furthermore has the
       responsibility of emitting a PDF bookmark after writing the first
       page header in a document.  Consult the existing implementations
       in an.tmac when drafting replacements.

       .BT    Set the page footer text (“bottom trap”).

       .PT    Set the page header text (“page trap”).

       If you want to remove a page header or footer entirely, define
       the appropriate macro as empty rather than deleting it.

So, indeed not.  I'm saying it's not the man page author's business how
the user wants the headers and footers formatted.

Do you think I should go further and warn man page authors away from
attempting to redefine these macros in their pages?

Regards,
Branden

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature