[bug #61507] want mechanism for more reliable absolute vertical positioning

[Dave]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?61507>

                 Summary: want mechanism for more reliable absolute vertical
positioning
                 Project: GNU troff
            Submitted by: barx
            Submitted on: Fri 19 Nov 2021 03:40:19 AM CST
                Category: Core
                Severity: 1 - Wish
              Item Group: New feature
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
         Planned Release: None

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Details:

The | modifier for absolute vertical positioning is less than ideal.

One drawback, pointed out in bug #60820, is that it is not quite the
absolute-position indicator it purports to be, when used with, e.g., the \v
escape.

Another -- pointed out in an October email thread
(http://lists.gnu.org/r/groff/2021-10/msg00016.html) and, as of Sunday's
commit f7bbcd8f
<http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/commit/?id=f7bbcd8f>, documented
in Texinfo (though alluded to for many years before that, by the existence of
the example "y-from-top-down" macro in the .sp section) -- is that when used
in an .sp request, the motion unavoidably goes 1v further down than requested.
 (There is a related issue with .mk/.rt.)

Brainstorming took place in the aforementioned thread, but whether the new
mechanism should be a new request, a new distance modifier akin to |, or
something else, has not been decided.




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