Re: man Pages

["Wilcox, John (WWC, Contractor)" <wilcoxj -at- WDNI -dot- COM>]

 ----------
From: John Posada

The time has come for me to figure out how to create set of UNIX man
pages.

>>> John, if you'll search the techwr-l archives, you should come up
with at least a few messages about man pages.  I'm sure, 'cause I wrote
one of them.  This was between 1 and 3 years ago.  It's been over 2
years since I did a man page.  If you don't find what you need, write me
back and I'll recap what I know (which has long since left RAM; that's
why I'm not doing it unless you can't find it).

I'm not a UNIX person.  However, I assume I need to use a UNIX editor,
maybe something like vi.  I have it.  I know a tiny bit about vi, and
what I don't know I'm willing to learn. I also know that there is a
standard format with standard sections and standard conventions.

>>> I use vi almost daily, and I'll send you a crib sheet if you need
it.  I was weened on UNIX, and I wrote my first couple of manuals using
vi and nroff.  I don't use UNIX anymore except on my ISP's server, but I
have a DOS port of vi.  However, any editor that can save as ASCII text
will work.

 ----------
From: John Posada

...the part that worries me is that I recall seeing hyperlinks in some
man pages that appeared on the screen in reverse video. How do I create
that effect and how to I create the hyperlink? Was I imagining
something?

>>> Perhaps.  I didn't work much with X Windows, so I don't know whether
man pages in that environment could contain hyperlinks, but the reverse
video you see in typical man pages are 1) headings and 2) text specified
as bold.  (Italicized text usually comes out underlined.)

Are there specifics such as line length or is that taken care of when
its run through the UNIX text editor.  I also assume that when I open
and save in vi, that the PC end of line/end of file will convert to the
appropriate UNIX end of line/end of file characters ?

>>> X Windows should do line wraps automatically, so you shouldn't have
to worry about line length.  For full-screen displays, you should keep
the line length to 72 characters (80 may be possible, but 72 is safe).

 ----------
From: Bernice Kieffer

The best and easiest way to create a man page is to convert the Frame
file to
acscii using something like FM2A.

>>> Hmmm.  I don't see how simply saving a file in ASCII format would
make it display like a man page.  A man page is one that bears the
format of a UNIX manual page (a really old one, btw) when displayed with
the 'man' command.  The 'man' command simply reads in a text file and
formats it on-screen according to the formatting commands that are
embedded in the file.

Once you have the ascii file, all you have to
do isplace it in the following directory structure:

man1/filename.1

The UNIX filter looks for the man1 directory then for the filename.1
file and
prints the information on screen.