From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from zelgadis.fingolfin.org (zelgadis.fingolfin.org [72.14.186.115]) by fantadrom.bsd.lv (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 1f14abc0 for ; Tue, 26 Feb 2019 19:51:58 -0500 (EST) Received: from [172.20.5.54] (unknown [208.184.5.170]) by zelgadis.fingolfin.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 41719C001; Wed, 27 Feb 2019 00:51:54 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Re: Cross references to specific sections in other manual pages To: Ingo Schwarze , discuss@mandoc.bsd.lv References: <20190219223541.GC95454@athene.usta.de> From: Robert Mustacchi Openpgp: preference=signencrypt Autocrypt: addr=rm@fingolfin.org; keydata= mQINBFv96ckBEADb5uhHdH4xC9nhcBF/+mzN8p4IdP/llsidWJFwLQZb9nGFUn3NvVQnGHqC dMAS2rnkrz2LQbXyE61fbnbpLg43R0pTy0xh9xuc7wMMPvWSkr1H9JwCNmJFQXefpw3uyz/u 6wxVBfV12UTP0UL4p+xO2vT92Am5rwwCCLwHl8NwmlkAGTPpYIj1uSvh24Qek8TE/8dvenaj qH3bna9alMb673bmdKt0Mmh8NE+9Vok7e+l9wBBOxfslcF7kFX1m7OZv62rYs3SYrMMs8NxY Kxi7RS07sJ7ePLPBKvjUDe2ti1+rajWsDrFTvuoHDokT11Ner9mT+jKGAR8lErk8pW0Mej1E SUeV/WGAuh87lq+X1qOFLxGaE+D5mGUNCRvka3cOt9OQpH4FwYyIjZxvD/IGHJUNbX1S5x/0 Ai0zlYkXNyRjwJo0rEblEJRqhVBb2gZP0YKAKYTe3ktb1xFEfQr1/UdV2atZH8/O5kPmT67o sDuSbOS3oQci6oqEqaGmTUTzv03t7T+moadYCiSOYhnldYgQh8ALM/a9V1VVRc9LwcjgCRTJ zP734kRbojjGCqX4TQSNj6xqWSEAgs28rLzLnlDLQIotnErzI6HwBPN/RkFoWLx7ep84PeQC j4ZjfEnduNIBm6Frs9SNB/nmiTVVlqL0KPrGDLvzg54lqoBwcQARAQABtCNSb2JlcnQgTXVz dGFjY2hpIDxybUBmaW5nb2xmaW4ub3JnPokCVAQTAQgAPhYhBP6ykWnWSPjXXIEUJ0Krnw37 iegSBQJb/enJAhsDBQkFo5qABQsJCAcCBhUKCQgLAgQWAgMBAh4BAheAAAoJEEKrnw37iegS 6EsP+wc93jABlv6w7RdZajcLyVK+fwPXUZ92R9wQ9YSuxGPcWtxCdi6N6DzL2xmjLCq5sSCv xUoEbkZ3MMLikjnU/Fto9m00EreBdKuOXav8A64DmU9wZWyVcuMmtch131H1qZYh1Bge/eDp Pa1QLJ1GJg9H3mI7V7IrNhKADTiU7p3j9KVhLMy3GBdTLQN/VuXduYA/EEW1t3vUlV6fqSqP yyg8DTDrhZBQZZ0nvPWWoVBOyQ8GQmextVrqTleyBUZQKqWbRYZkDlDg3iwc3PtkEqgL1Nbx NRD9lC0wcuzUmxDli8LlqjkkkLmD+ZDJWhsBaMwZm6uFa5HUlC5p1EIRoMZ7qn6acnrkF9C0 PxmdnTIeXDtHmb8kH7007LiPBZiQLDf25v49GWqS/4ltcikKofOYzJkbRdHTCF4ggELGJHgi cRBWeSFsJlazb2EuLv+74OcAyIfpIVblCETQjh+TbJcHbVKbMLmjEbF+3vuyB4RjsdhbSDio N28jir1erwm2iiyAefYG4MwuUNd69Udj+JdSmg3yeGebBIEfOcMMWwfqwrSY0VEx966SduiG tgSMz7mISSlr4vJ8pR1SrLQfhmU78L8IaHL/vtXD/rbvWvxzy21FX8FXtPZVkSI1iJycUcT2 EnBOa9RiN/+MOq7JW+dAMqxVvR561dvlXel2s0XLuQINBFv96ckBEAC+vSYIR+QxyB+wHTpN IWbI8A0ROu/5SbSm7QiQ8cq98Cw8hJ4f4iEhODYG6wJv1RA2jNAme6V/8EVZTRaIIEyNGokr 5WQcFHscP63lHskVzHDdNKOhFKK8z863PAxu9KnIwtxUG/N3sIVh7RNK+PQ73zGf6u93Qdqr NBN+nbtgAURIhBWCtXGg0HZSm9VjoC8eDkxfeR43PgPi4KLTNiY6yTNubrmjRF2FuPvZDD0A kbKqQXgEqglacs9Q2jWsAse8QzQc8Y70oHZx1v37Y3OSHSALp5l3H6z7M6Y8G5p5rTXJTC+r cKsRYehoatv+fymRCLNGpfIimMvUhj0hGHF5u6K44Od4hI66v7CBhmdIKEbb8Nadvrla51fZ xQnWlfvmYIC3kRhgcHhe0KokH1tx5QXXZDs/BDbWx7XWbeBM/hebvKQQ353lJBbsyP6b7Jt0 oQlY7AtP29V8Ggiej6OQk3TfXI9YwWDJdGdIvQyGTmRGnSft/GlBsuajeIeI6C6m9B7cqiZx Cg+Cx8G3+kgzz9t3sqDzfRHLDl/jHFYcAxc6e2DvVQcPrMUvEyuGihMc4KEmzoMjdX4yWQoO SpIy7WFVh86k4Rfizo73+2Lge0MWDy+hS32T3nWZMTLJkHdRG6iyPPx9SsVLswsrxmlHoHwu NMVFv/XXnEn1MjmcfwARAQABiQI8BBgBCAAmFiEE/rKRadZI+NdcgRQnQqufDfuJ6BIFAlv9 6ckCGwwFCQWjmoAACgkQQqufDfuJ6BK2xw//Tu20ilDR2M7QwYL8iGGKV/ZyoGlkzwe/UmV5 0dP3u7bFR8j27AanhuonVUHf6nwdW4QElt61TlFpPadn6Y6DUQ50JuOfa4PfyQfbBQJsA47R 8q76EkeBqd8QeMtgkaUkC8eOx4Dxr46IEH+CGJwVjUTqzwz8j4C8CaNXDX2G8tuD5dE87Fla EtPS6ErrB+YqpK58jWXJBWYhYLQwppv/Wg/qXR3CrpAEkHBCr5XzEhp6h3DM/E3NdINSR5cb 7tVcsb0A/0V89RWqhUNZ4VeRvrKhaVuJc3KCKZcxHf8ttkD98XGZWPIesyw/BP11vSPhvary iCt+JO8LfWIxmSDtEs4d+aLyNbXL72U8Mz++hOXFHTVbva5DbdVgWrDQjGU58OuObFG3RKQF Wx0ampzjWMRkuL3972GpT381ugLBeoubZ9HDPeNUW9vCl7HQPDuZmGw1iO1MY40u99QtQuVd woJzmijqrdym4xKjZmiMF+W0eam5pbRR465YCjkRS8gtHMvfouLin5tFg16ae41yRR8GFXfe WhVxQVolmtFjCSMTBSZtIbC+jGWYZYSX6s+N9tY9lD4ILLRlb9uaL+8FvwoLdZ836SQg2wo+ a2NXfJY8CbtnzpoZStDJfVGw4eRJgv1GYRJIxU5gozyoG5FDRffToXbxCH3nh3Oou5bQTVs= Message-ID: <1265f743-e3dd-14c6-a2e1-62e4f359a9f2@fingolfin.org> Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 16:51:53 -0800 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/60.5.1 X-Mailinglist: mandoc-discuss Reply-To: discuss@mandoc.bsd.lv MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20190219223541.GC95454@athene.usta.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Ingo, Thanks for your reply, apologies this wasn't nearly as prompt as yours. On 2/19/19 14:35 , Ingo Schwarze wrote: > So far, it wasn't implemented because the focus has been on > consolidating, on simplifying the language, and only to a much > lesser degree on adding features. Intentionally so: a programmer > should only be allowed to add one new thing (adding complexity) > after first having made ten things simpler. Otherwise, the > software will inevitably sprawl away from perfection instead of > converging towards it. Makes sense. I appreciate the tension there. >> I'm not sure if this is something that should >> be elevated into its own macro. > > I think the simple, obvious syntax > > For more information, see > .Xr libproc 3LIB LOCKING . > > is probably fine and unlikely to cause problems with backward > compatibility, but i'm not absolutely convinced yet. I thought about something similar as well, but I hadn't convinced myself that it made sense or that someone wouldn't end up being upset with however one phrased to see what we put there. >> If folks think it might be useful, I'm >> happy to take a look at implementing it. > > Whoa, watch out what you promise! :-D > > Implementing it involves: > > - syntax tree modeling > - modification of the mdoc parser > - modification of the mdoc validator > - checking tree output mode (likely fine as-is) > - modification of the mdoc terminal formatter > - making sure PostScript and PDF output dont't break > - modification of the mdoc HTML formatter > - checking that mandoc.css still works (likely fine as-is) > - modification of the mdoc markdown formatter > - modification of the mdoc man formatter > > and that is only the mandoc part. Then, the same thing needs to be > done for groff as well, because with respect to language definition > changes, mandoc and groff are supposed to march in lock-step. I'll admit, the groff part was the part of the list that I didn't expect. > Note that input syntax considerations are not even the most tricky > part here. What counts is making the *output* as useful as possible > across a wide range of output devices (before telling poeple that > they can start using it if they want to). Some years ago, preliminary > steps were missing to make the output useful, which is another > reason why it wasn't worked on earlier. Now, a useful HTML rendering > has become possible: > > For more information, see the > LOCKING > section in libproc(3LIB). > > In terminal output, it is far less useful because we still have no > way to somehow invoke "man -s 3LIB libproc" when you see libproc(3LIB) > in a terminal, and much less to invoke "man -O tag=LOCKING -s 3LIB libproc" > where you see "LOCKING section in libproc(3LIB)". But we are a step > closer now: at least the syntax > > man -O tag=LOCKING -s 3LIB libproc > > to open the target manual page in a terminal *at the desired place* > is now implemented and tested (in OpenBSD) and will be contained in the > next portable mandoc release - but it is a lot of typing and not easy to > shorten (without causing compatibility issues), which severly limits the > usefulness of such links in the terminal. That's interesting. Will the next portable release be announced here? I'd like to make sure we're able to test that in illumos whenever it makes sense. > PDF would in principle support hyperlinks, but the mandoc PDF > formatting engine is *very* far away from becoming able to generate > hyperlinks, and trying to teach it hyperlinks at this point might > looks like a task for a suicide squad to me. > > So, read this as a hopeful reply, but don't necessarily regard it as > an easy or short-term target... > > The best way to get it moved ahead is probably proposing a SIMPLE and > convenient way to follow .Xr links from a rendered manual page in a > terminal window - simple both in the sense of avoiding undue complication > of the implementation and in the sense of ease of use. Once we have > that, i absolutely see how your feature request is becoming really > useful. > > In the meantime, simply write > > For more information, see the LOCKING section in > .Xr libproc 3LIB . > > without any markup on "LOCKING"; the all caps already makes it stand > out without additional markup. I'll make sure to clean up some of the older markup and standardize on that going forward. The different constraints and complications make sense. I do agree, that it's not clear if it'll end up being worthwhile or not. Depending on time, I may poke at it a little bit and see if it's worth panning out or if it explodes in complexity and thus isn't worthwhile. Thanks again, Robert -- To unsubscribe send an email to discuss+unsubscribe@mandoc.bsd.lv