Re: [Groff] Nesting font macros in man pages

[G. Branden Robinson]

At 2017-04-27T04:00:29+0000, Bjarni Ingi Gislason wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 11:41:22AM -0400, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > At 2017-04-24T16:22:37+0100, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> > > .SM affect the next input line as it uses an input trap, `.it'.  `\c'
> > > doesn't make an input line continue to the next as far as input traps
> > > are concerned;  groff has .itc for that.  So the .SM is over by the `)'.
> > 
> > That's exactly the hack I wanted to make to the TP macro.  I want to
> > change its .it to an itc, thus:
> 
>   I have made a similar suggestion, see bug number #42907 (or look for
> 'itc').

Thanks, Bjarni!  I'm glad to know that this has occurred to someone
else.

> [...]
> > 
> > .TP
> > .B \-scale \c
> > .IR xfac [, yfac ]
> > Multiply the horizontal and vertical window size by
> > .I xfac
> > and
> > .IR yfac ,
> > respectively.
> > 
> 
>   One can use the transparent line indicator (\!) to use macros in a label,
> without changing the '.TP' macro:
> 
> .TH testman 1 2017-04-DD
> .TP
> \!.B \-scale \c 
> .IR xfac [, yfac ]
> Multiply the horizontal and vertical window size by
> 
>   or a little different output (with a necessary longer indent):
> 
> .TH testman 1 2017-04-DD
> .TP 20n
> \!.B \-scale \c
> \!.IR xfac [\c
> \!.B ,\c
> .IR yfac ]
> Multiply the horizontal and vertical window size by

I agree with Ingo that this looks worse, not better, but to me that
suggests we should save our users the pain by implementing the TP/itc
proposal.

I further note for the benefit of those who did not go check out the
bug[1], that your proposal is to consistent make _all_ of the man macros
that set single-line traps switch to .itc from .it.

At some point, if no one beats me to it, I'll make that change locally
and measure the impact.

Regards,
Branden

[1] https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?42907

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