Subject: Man pages on the web

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2001 15:37:17 +0000

I want to adapt run_man2html.sh to man2html which is included with man on
some linux systems. It is in fact cgi script that generates http headers
too (which are stripped). I am leaving the current functionality, so
run_man2html.sh auto-detects man2html and works with what is installed.

The output is different from what we have now by the following:

  * it looks more like html, not man, i.e. <pre> is not used globally
  * real bold and italic used instead of colors (colors may be added too)
  * subsection index is generated with proper links inside the document
  * links to http://, ftp:// and mail address strings are added
  * other minor differences, say the date inside the man page is displayed

There are several problems, but they may be fixed by adding pre-filters
and post-filters using pipe.

I added colors using <style>, looks ok for me in browsers supporting css,
but they may be turned off completely if real bold and italic are used.

I would give it a try, then we may compare, discuss.

Regards,
Mikhael.
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---

From: Dan Espen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2001 12:06:38 -0400

> I would give it a try, then we may compare, discuss.

run_man2html currently uses man2html.  On my system, thats
currently man2html version 1.2.

man2html 1.2 uses bold and italic by default.
I didn't like the way it looked and added the arguments:

   -belem 'font color="cyan"'
   -uelem 'font color="yellow"'

man2html 1.2 will generate headers by default, but I wanted more
control so I added "-bare".

By all means, go ahead and see what improvements you can make.

-- 
Dan Espen
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---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2001 16:26:24 +0000

> By all means, go ahead and see what improvements you can make.

man2html on my system is complitly different, it is cgi, i.e. almost
has no command line options. It is shipped together with man(1).

There are probably many man2html-like scripts all with different
functionality, I just used what is installed.

I don't like the man2html I have. I added so many work-arounds that it
probably would be easier (not really) to rewrite it from stratch in perl.

Anyway, I think it is now ok as the web page, but this is questionable.
One may like empty space on the left, other may think empty space only
uses real estate of the browser and does not add anything.

I have no problems if we return to the previous format, just wanted to
show an alternative.

Regards,
Mikhael.

---

From: Dan Espen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2001 13:38:27 -0400

> I have no problems if we return to the previous format, just wanted to

I don't like empty space on the left.  It doesn't serve any purpose.

Lately I've been using Opera as my primary browser.
It doesn't like the way the .EX tags are framed:

<PRE><blockquote>AddToMenu Utilities Utilities Title
 + Xterm           Exec  exec xterm -e tcsh
 + Rxvt            Exec  exec rxvt
...
 + &quot;&quot;              Nop
 + Exit Fvwm       Popup Quit-Verify</blockquote></PRE>

it ends up flowing all the text in the example together.
I don't think it likes <blockquote> inside of <pre>.

Explorer and Navigator have no problem.