Changes to groff mdoc rendering on typesetters

[G. Branden Robinson]

I have landed the changes constituting "Project: Kill Inline Courier".

Details are of course in the NEWS file, ChangeLog file, and commit
messages, depending on your level of curiosity.  Here's what I say in
NEWS.  Heck, I'll throw in a change that landed weeks/months ago.

o The doc (mdoc) macro package's `Mt` macro now sets its argument in
  roman, not italics (or whatever the string `doc-Pa-font` was
  configured to use).  A new string, `doc-Mt-font`, for use in
  "mdoc.local" files and similar, supports configuration of this face.

o The doc (mdoc) macro package now performs font family switches
  inline (that is, on the same output line) to Courier much less
  frequently when formatting for typesetters, affecting the `Ar`, `Cm`,
  `Er`, `Fa`, `Fd`, `Fl`, `Fn`, `Ft`, `Ic`, `Li`, and `Nm` macros.  This
  change was made to reduce the ambiguity of space widths when
  typesetting the monospaced Courier and proportional Times fonts
  adjacently.  Bear in mind that you can use the mdoc.local file to
  customize the font used to render nearly any mdoc(7) macro; this
  mechanism has been in place since 1992.

o The doc (mdoc) macro package's `Ql` macro now operates more simply; it
  no longer (ever) quotes its arguments when formatting for typesetters.
  In practice, it does not seem difficult to distinguish even single
  characters in Courier from those in Times.  (If it is, an _explicit_
  quoting macro like `Sq` or `Dq` should be used.)

I offer a further observation in an effort to reduce the number of
people grabbing oxygen masks.

Courier isn't "killed off entirely" in groff renderings of mdoc
documents.

A.  It is still used by `.Bd -literal`.

B.  It is still used by `.Ql`.

C.  Courier is still available in tbl(1) tables, of course.

Please find 3 attachments.

1.  A groff 1.23.0 rendering of the mandoc(1) 1.14.6 man (mdoc) pages.

2.  A groff Git HEAD.23.0 rendering of the same.

3.  The shell script I used to produce these.

I invite the reader to A/B compare #1 and #2.

Regards,
Branden

mandoc-groffed-1.23.0.pdf
Description: mandoc-groffed-1.23.0.pdf

mandoc-groffed-HEAD-v4.pdf
Description: mandoc-groffed-HEAD-v4.pdf

groffify-mandoc.sh
Description: groffify-mandoc.sh

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature