Re: [nmh-workers] Need help with sending mail

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Ken,

> Even Ralph (RALPH!) admitted he doesn't always read to the end of the
> post(8) man page all of the time :-)

I think that's because I wade through the DESCRIPTION, searching for an
option or two amongst the verbose prose, and then don't skip to the end
unless I think SEE ALSO might be useful to continue the search.  This
means I rarely consult FILES, PROFILE COMPONENTS, DEFAULTS, or CONTEXT.
They're too late to the party.

One of the many things on my to-do list was to re-write a typical nmh
man page so that it had enough of a DESCRIPTION to understanding its
purpose, and then a new OPTIONS would list them, probably ordered
lexically, and using `.TP' to give the convention hanging-tag
presentation.  So post might say

    -msgid  Add a ‘Message-ID’ or ‘Resent-Message-ID’ header.
            Default: -nomsgid.

    -messageid hostsrc
            The host part of any added message or content ID is
            the hostname if hostsrc is ‘localname’, or a random sequence
            of characters if hostsrc is ‘random’.  Default: -messageid
            localname.

If options couldn't be given in a profile because the command doesn't
read it then this would be prominently after the OPTIONS section header,
before the options.

DEFAULTS isn't needed because each default is listed with the option.
This also lessens the chance the code and the man page drifts.

Feedback on the one example man page would help decide whether to
convert the others, and also provide a bit of a template.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy