Subject: FVWM: Man page too long

From: "Felix E. Klee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 16:12:17 +0100

Hi,

I'm trying to set up FVWM2. However, browsing the man page is tedious since it 
is extremely long. Is it available divided into subsections in INFO, HTML, or 
some other format?

Felix

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From: Dan Espen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 10:26:02 -0500

> is extremely long. Is it available divided into subsections in INFO, HTML, or

HTML:

http://www.fvwm.org/generated/manpages/fvwm2.html

I find reading man pages with XEmacs the best way to go.

Start XEmacs, type esc x man <return> fvwm2 <return>

-- 
Dan Espen                           E-mail: [email-masked]

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From: Marcus Lundblad <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 16:37:11 +0100 (CET)

> Start XEmacs, type esc x man <return> fvwm2 <return>

It ofcourse works in "ordninary" Emacs also: Meta-x man <return> fvwm2
<return>

//Marcus

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From: "Felix E. Klee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 16:48:08 +0100

On Saturday 23 November 2002 04:26 pm, Dan Espen wrote:
> > I'm trying to set up FVWM2. However, browsing the man page is tedious
> > since it is extremely long. Is it available divided into subsections in
> > INFO, HTML, or some other format?
>
> HTML:
>

Thanks, but it's not divided into sub sections and therefore offers no great 
advantage to the text mode man page for me.

> Start XEmacs, type esc x man <return> fvwm2 <return>

That's what I'm doing (in EMACS) and I know that you can jump between sections 
with 'n' and 'p", etc.. However, I'm missing a table of contents and and easy 
way to browse the documentation hierarically. Annoying is for example that 
searching always applies to the whole document and not to a single section. 
Wouldn't it somehow be possible to create a decent info page from the man 
page?

Felix

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From: Dan Espen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 10:52:43 -0500

> advantage to the text mode man page for me.

Near the top, click on "this page contents".

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From: "Felix E. Klee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 16:59:57 +0100

On Saturday 23 November 2002 04:52 pm, Dan Espen wrote:
> > Thanks, but it's not divided into sub sections and therefore offers no
> > great advantage to the text mode man page for me.
>

Not bad, but still not convenient. It would be better if the document was 
separated into subdocuments, especially for searching.

Felix

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From: Norvell Spearman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 12:19:20 -0600

> separated into subdocuments, especially for searching.

I did this on my system:

$ cp /usr/man/man1/fvwm.1.bz2 ~/tmp
$ cd ~/tmp
$ bzip2 -d fvwm.1.bz2
$ man2html fvwm.1 > fvwm.html
$ htmldoc -f fvwm.pdf fvwm.html

It gave me a really nice pdf file with a table of contents, clickable
links, index, and the ability to search.

-- 
Norvell Spearman

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From: "Felix E. Klee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 19:26:24 +0100

> links, index, and the ability to search.

Yes, but in your case searching still affects the whole document or am I 
missing something?

Felix

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From: Norvell Spearman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 12:50:00 -0600

> Yes, but in your case searching still affects the whole document or am I 

In one posting you use the words ``sub sections'' and in the next
``subdocuments.''  I didn't try the other methods offered, but the pdf
file I got definitely has what I'd call ``subsections.''  I'm not sure
what you mean by ``subdocuments.''  Do you want every subsection in its
own separate file? e.g., name.foo, synopsis.foo, description.foo,
options.foo, anatomy_of_a_window.foo?  If so, how is having many files
--- instead of just one --- necessarily better for searching?

---

From: "Felix E. Klee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:08:23 +0100

On Saturday 23 November 2002 07:50 pm, Norvell Spearman wrote:
> options.foo, anatomy_of_a_window.foo?  

Yes, either each section in a different file or, as in EMACS info mode, 
browsable seperately.

> If so, how is having many files

For example, I don't like it if I search for "pager" in "The Virtual Desktop" 
and end up in "Initialization".

Felix

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From: Norvell Spearman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 13:20:06 -0600

> and end up in "Initialization".

Ah, I see your point.  I know that some programs (on my system, at
least) have both man pages and info pages.  tar and gzip are two
examples that come to mind.  You may want to post a request for info
page versions of fvwm's man pages to the [email-masked] list, if
such requests aren't outside that list's scope.  Sorry my suggestion
wasn't helpful.