Re: [Groff] call for comments on a proposed patch

[Gaius Mulley]

Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden> writes:

Hi Werner,

> > basically I'd like feedback as to whether this works on many tbl
> > inputs and whether it is useful?
> 
> It's definitely useful.  Here my list of remarks.

thanks..

>   . Please provide a patch with GNU diff's `-u' option.

ok, sure.. here it is:

diffs
Description: table colour patch v1

>   . Perhaps it is easier to use `.fcolor' and `.gcolor' instead of `\m'
>     followed by `.sp -1'.

yes, I forgot about .fcolor and .gcolor, this is much cleaner

>   . Have you done tests with multi-page tables?

no, this almost certainly will break the patch.  I suspect it can be
fixed though..

>   . What's the reason for changing the ms code?  It's probably a
>     showstopper if users have to change their macro packages just to
>     get colour support in tables...

Yes true, I hope to modify most macro sets in the same way to -ms.
Basically the ms macro set needed to be modified so that

   macro TS

   marked the top of the table
   started a diversion for the table contents

and

   macro TE

   returned to the top of the table
   requests the length of the table needed
   replays the diversion (for table contents)

aside from the multi-page issue (which I've not looked into yet)
I think these changes should be easy to introduce to -man and -me.

regards,
Gaius