Re: How will man pages be stored under GNU?

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Article #72164

#72164

From: Ajay Shah
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1992 21:04

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lm@slovax.Eng.Sun.COM (Larry McVoy) writes:

>mib@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell) writes:
>: 
>: The GNU manuals will be in texinfo format, with a
>: conversion/installation program for adding tmac.an format manuals.

>However, this info stuff is a pain.  Ditto for 4.4 BSD's choice to go w/

>Could someone explain to me the value added by going to info files?  If it

I have seen Unix manuals produced using troff and IMHO Tex(info)
produces far better quality.

- Knuth has done great work on fonts,
- Support for toc, indexes, cross-referencing, etc. is excellent,
- You get something which looks like a book and not like a man page
- You get a "hypertext" online manual "for free".  ``All'' we need is
  a standalone info program and a little glue code and we can say
  things like
                info sort
  to get the sort man page (just like man sort), with the value added of
  being hypertext.

I started reading the Texinfo manual last night and I quite like what
I see.  (I'm biased, being a LaTeX/TeX user already).

        -ans.
-- 

Ajay Shah, (213)749-8133, ajayshah@usc.edu

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From: ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah)
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Subject: Re: How will man pages be stored under GNU?
Date: 18 Apr 1992 14:04:46 -0700
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