[Groff] Re: html docs (fwd)

[Dean Allen Provins]

Eddie:

> On Thu, 30 Dec 1999, Dean Allen Provins wrote:
> 
> Actually, I was thinking you meant the Groff HTML docs since you mentioned
> using Groff for that I think, not just your HOWTO.
> 
> To get me started, if you know this much:
> 
> After groff-1.xx.tar.gz is extracted,
> - ./configure --prefix=/a/b/c
> - make
> - make install
> 
> 1. where are all the docs hidden?
> 1a. where, at least, are all the docs about Groff HTML support?
> 2. How do we get them into human readable form?
> 
> I notice in /a/b/c/doc and /a/b/c/tmac some useful things, but then what?
> /a/b/c/tmac/tmac.arkup especially. How do we view any of them?
> 
> ------------------
> Eddie Maddox
> address@hidden

I simply asked for HTML output for my HOWTO.  The result is the file I sent
you.

You appear to have built the latest groff, and placed the binaries and
man pages in /a/b/c.

I defaulted the location, causing everything to go to
/usr/local/{bin,share,man} etc.

The docs, such as they are, are in /usr/local/man/man[157].  Trouble is,
there are no HTML documents there - just the usual groff stuff.  

I don't see a /usr/local/doc directory (although there is something called
/usr/local/share/groff/tmac/mdoc which contains 'troff' sources.  These are
not useful to either of us.

The tmac.arkup file is a file of macros to support basic HTML page items
like 'mailto', and URL references that you can click on.

All I can suggest is that you read the comments in the file.  It appears
that there is NO OTHER DOCUMENTATION for html (at least none yet).

It appears that to use this, you indicate that you want that macro package
included with your groff source file.  Then you can include the macro
commands in the source file to get items like I just mentioned to appear
properly in a WEB page.  For example, the first one is '.BODYCOLOR'.  It 
appears to
be used as follows (the period MUST be in column one):

  .BODYCOLOR red blue yellow green grey

This sets the foreground colour to red, background to blue, active link to
yellow, unvisited link to green and visited link to grey (see the comments
to see how the arguments above relate to the arguemnts that are expected).

Another is .BACKGROUND, used as:

  .BACKGROUND name_of_background_image_file

which places the named image file as a backdrop for the page.

Others are .URL, .LINK, .FTP, .MAILTO, .TAG, .IMAGE, and .CDFTP.  To see
how these work, read the comments in the 'tmac.arkup' file.  I'm not an
HTML person, but I think the comments are fairly expanatory.  If you have
questions, I'll try to answer them, but Gaius (I think) might be a better
choice.

Regards,

Dean Provins
Calgary