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Re: [Quilt-dev] [patch 02/26] Eliminate or replace blank lines.
From: |
G. Branden Robinson |
Subject: |
Re: [Quilt-dev] [patch 02/26] Eliminate or replace blank lines. |
Date: |
Sun, 17 Jun 2018 17:39:30 -0400 |
User-agent: |
NeoMutt/20170113 (1.7.2) |
At 2018-06-17T22:26:00+0200, Jean Delvare wrote:
> Hi Branden,
Hi Jean!
> Hmmm. I see the improvement in the formatted output, but the absence
> of blank lines in the man page "source" make it pretty hard to read
> now. I would appreciate some form of spacing at least before each
> section to make it easier to navigate whenever a developer needs to
> edit the document. Does roff provide no way to achieve this?
It does! There are a few possible approaches, which are not mutually
exclusive.
The empty request (just a dot on a line by itself) can be used for
vertically spacing the input. Here are some conventions, all of which
I've seen in groff's own man page corpus. For instance, I'll put a
segment of pfbtops(1) at the end of this message.
There are 3 features of note in it.
1. A single empty request is used between sentences;
2. Two empty requests are used between paragraphs; and
3. The empty request plus a comment of a line-spanning set of equals
signs marks off a section.
In principle the break-suppressing escape character (') could also be
drafted into service for structuring the input, but in practice I have
not seen that done, and I fear it would confuse non-expert consumers of
the source.
What would you like to see in quilt's man pages?
.\" ====================================================================
.SH DESCRIPTION
.\" ====================================================================
.
.B pfbtops
translates a PostScript font in
.B .pfb
format to ASCII, splitting overlong lines in text packets into smaller
chunks.
.
If
.I pfb_file
is omitted the pfb file will be read from the standard input.
.
The ASCII format PostScript font will be written on the standard output.
.
PostScript fonts for MS-DOS are normally supplied in
.B .pfb
format.
.
.
.LP
The resulting ASCII format PostScript font can be used with groff.
.
--
Regards,
Branden
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- Re: [Quilt-dev] [patch 01/26] The man macro RE is given an argument when it does not need one., (continued)
[Quilt-dev] [patch 04/26] Reorganize sections to use only section names endorsed by man-pages(7), and put them in the recommended order., g . branden . robinson, 2018/06/16
[Quilt-dev] [patch 06/26] Use groff_man(7)s EX and EE macros for examples., g . branden . robinson, 2018/06/16
[Quilt-dev] [patch 02/26] Eliminate or replace blank lines., g . branden . robinson, 2018/06/16
[Quilt-dev] [patch 03/26] Break input lines at all sentence endings., g . branden . robinson, 2018/06/16
[Quilt-dev] [patch 05/26] Use font macros instead of font escapes., g . branden . robinson, 2018/06/16
[Quilt-dev] [patch 08/26] Make synopsis comprehensive., g . branden . robinson, 2018/06/16
[Quilt-dev] [patch 10/26] Use "e.g." correctly., g . branden . robinson, 2018/06/16