Re: [vile] vile-pager

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2008, Paul van Tilburg wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 09:11:42AM -0400, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> > On Sun, 27 Apr 2008, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> > > On Sun, 27 Apr 2008, Paul van Tilburg wrote:
> > > > I wanted to install vile-pager as an alternative for view.
> > > > However, it doesn't seem to work very well anymore.
> > > > It uses vile-manfilt, which is not available anymore so it seems.
> > >
> > > vile-manfilt is normally installed in $prefix/lib/vile/, e.g.,
> > > /usr/local/lib/vile/vile-manfilt
> >
> > continuing that thought - vile updates its $PATH so it can find the
> > executable there.  If it's not finding it, that's because the install
> > overlooked it for some reason (I'd check the packager's script for
> > that, though my Debian/testing has a copy installed as part of
> > vile-filters).
>
> I'm talking about Debian here.. it is installed.. though I get the complaint
> trying to use vile-pager.

I'm not sure why - I don't use it often, but I did a quick check here,
and it was working.  Perhaps there's some work needed for handling UTF-8
(though vile-manfilt itself does handle some cases).  With more info, I
can probably see what needs work.

I usually use vile-manfilt as part of the ^X-n formatting...

> But, why do we need it.. is calling HighlightFilter not enough?
> It's also inconvent, because it seems to me.. that now the file is always
> fed to vile via stdin.. and thus the suffix mode detection fails.

vile-pager is intended for things like manpages (though the default
man output on Debian doesn't have the overstrikes and underlining
that some other man programs produce).  When I checked it just now,
I used a script which wraps lynx (lynxdump) to see that it produced
the bold- and underlined text, e.g.,

        lynxdump foo.html | vile-pager

You can pipe "any" file to vile, but vile-pager filters overstriking
into attributes for bold- and underlining.  It also recognizes the
ANSI color controls, so I can do something like

        ls --color=always | vile-pager

It's not the same as

        ls --color=always | vile

--
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net