Re: groff 1.23.0.rc2 readiness

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Branden,

> Anybody who's read the previous discussion(s) we've had on this list
> about it, or the current version of the groff_char(7) man page, will
> be aware of my objections (the latter because I think those objections
> follow from a historical understanding of troff special characters).

I just grabbed groff_char(7) from Git and think I've read the referenced
parts.
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/plain/man/groff_char.7.man

> I don't think man pages should have to be written one way for
> terminals and another for PDF

Agreed.

> I have no problem adding an item to the PROBLEMS file with a chunk of
> groff source that people can put in their site "man.local" or
> "troffrc" files to achieve the ASCII-degradation of the five glyphs
> that novice man page writers abuse so copiously.

Don't some distros already muck with .char mappings, etc., for UTF-8
formatting of man pages on a TTY?
https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/tree/packages/groff/trunk
has site.tmac as an example.

A user can also do ‘man -E ascii ...’ with some man(1)s.

> Is the foregoing enough to satisfy anyone?

TTY emulators are only going to increase in capability, e.g. some
already in-line images.  I think we should produce the best rendering.
If a distro wishes to corrupt that, fine.  Meanwhile, effort to increase
the precision of man pages can occur and, over time, the odd distro here
and there lobbied to lessen their corruption.  Having the shipped groff
nobble the output removes the impetus for the improvement in precision.

BTW, I rarely find ‘box’ useful in tables, it seems heavy handed given
the white-space which already surrounds the table and a bit lazy.
I copy Kernighan's style.  Perhaps you can consider it.

The before,

    ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
    │Keycap   Appearance and meaning   Special character and meaning   │
    ├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
    │"        " neutral double quote   \[dq] neutral double quote      │
    │'        ’ closing single quote   \[aq] neutral apostrophe        │
    │-        - hyphen                 \- or \[-] minus sign/Unix dash │
    │\        (escape character)       \e or \[rs] reverse solidus     │
    │^        ˆ modifier circumflex    \(ha circumflex/caret/“hat”     │
    │`        ‘ opening single quote   \(ga grave accent               │
    │~        ˜ modifier tilde         \(ti tilde                      │
    └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

and after.

     ═══════╤════════════════════════╤═════════════════════════════════
     Keycap │ Appearance and meaning │ Special character and meaning
     ───────┼────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────
       "    │ " neutral double quote │ \[dq] neutral double quote
       '    │ ’ closing single quote │ \[aq] neutral apostrophe
       -    │ - hyphen               │ \- or \[-] minus sign/Unix dash
       \    │ (escape character)     │ \e or \[rs] reverse solidus
       ^    │ ˆ modifier circumflex  │ \(ha circumflex/caret/“hat”
       `    │ ‘ opening single quote │ \(ga grave accent
       ~    │ ˜ modifier tilde       │ \(ti tilde
     ───────┴────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────

Keycap looks better centred, and that top line is a double line.

    .TS
    center;
    c | l | l.
    =
    Keycap      Appearance and meaning  Special character and meaning
    _
    "   " neutral double quote  \f[CR]\[rs][dq]\f[] neutral double quote
    \[aq]       \[cq] closing single quote      \f[CR]\[rs][aq]\f[] neutral 
apostrophe
    \-  - hyphen        \f[CR]\[rs]\-\f[] or \f[CR]\[rs][\-]\f[] minus 
sign/Unix dash
    \[rs]       (escape character)      \f[CR]\[rs]e\f[] or \f[CR]\[rs][rs]\f[] 
reverse solidus
    \[ha]       \[u02C6] modifier circumflex    \f[CR]\[rs](ha\f[] 
circumflex/caret/\[lq]hat\[rq]
    \[ga]       \[oq] opening single quote      \f[CR]\[rs](ga\f[] grave accent
    \[ti]       \[u02DC] modifier tilde \f[CR]\[rs](ti\f[] tilde
    _
    .TE

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.