Re: [Groff] spacing bug in 1.19.x

[Zvezdan Petkovic]

On Fri, Jun 24, 2005 at 06:00:02PM +0200, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> 
> > Please find attached example for the spacing bug introduced in
> > 1.19.2pre Notice the lack of spacing between picture and the labels
> > below it.
> 
> Your macro definition of .Se relies on pic internals which are neither
> documented nor expected to be stable.

Perhaps they are not documented and not expected to be stable, but the
fact is that they _were_ stable before 1.19.x.
I didn't see that the change has been advertised too much in the docs
either. :-)

> Remove the `.sp -1' and everything looks fine.

Easier said than done.
As mentioned in the previous message I use these macros in the text
usually.  Without `.sp -1' there's an extra vertical space in the
output (regular one for the end of the paragraph, and another one for 
the line with \m[] only that is generated by .Se request.

> Even better, write the macros like this:
> 
>   .de Sl
>   .  gcolor blue
>   .  if \\n(.$ \&\\$1\m[]\\$2
>   ..
>   .de Rf
>   .  gcolor darkgreen
>   .  if \\n(.$ \&\\$1\m[]\\$2
>   ..
>   .de Se
>   .  gcolor
>   ..

This is a good solution.  I avoid both \c and '.sp -1' and the document
looks good.  The only problem is incompatibility with older groff
versions since gcolor doesn't exist there, but that can be worked around
if necessary.

Well, that seems to solve this issue.
Thank you for the .gcolor hint.
Now, only the gpresent problem and I can swith to 1.19.x completely. :-)

> > Also 1.19.2pre gives a warning:
> > 
> > $ groff -pe -me example.me > example.ps
> > example.me:70: warning [p 1, 5.4i]: cannot adjust line
> > 
> > The same document looks OK with 1.18.x and gives no warnings.
> 
> This is a new warning which says that groff can't adjust a line
> correctly.  And indeed the formula after `(a)' must be printed in a
> new line.

I understand the warning.
I do not understand why 1.18.x was able to adjust it and 1.19.x isn't.
But this is not a big deal really.

        ZP