[bug #64018] [man, mdoc] decide on a common base paragraph indentation

[G. Branden Robinson]

Follow-up Comment #4, bug #64018 (project groff):


[comment #3 comment #3:]
> I see no reason why the standard indentation of running text from the left
margin of the paper and the default indentation inside a tagged paragraph need
to be related in any way.  In fact, in 1990 Kernighan troff, the former was
\n(IN and the latter was \n()I.  Both happened to be .5i, but they could be
contolled independently of each other.

...if you knew about them, yes.  :)  We see the same use in my exhibits from
SunOS 4.
 
> As another example, in mdoc(7), the default indentation inside tagged lists
is 8n - 6n for the tag itself and an additional 2n for spacing, exactly as
suggested by Alejandro.

The congruence of measurements here may not be a coincidence, but a bit of
convergent evolution.

> Would anything be wrong with restoring the indentation of running text from
the left margin from 7n to again be 5n but at the same time leaving anything
that happens inside the document content, i.e. to the right of those 7n or 5n
of global indentation, completely unchanged?

Not that I can see.  I don't mind adding exposing another configurable
register for this, splitting the present semantics of `IN`.  Maybe `BP` or
`PI` to suggest "base paragraph indentation".

I'd need another register anyway to make the post-tag spacing configurable
anyway, and told Alex I'd look into it after 1.23.0 final.  Adding him to CC.


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