Re: getting more out of man pages with less(1)

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Hey.

Steffen Nurpmeso wrote in
 <20210523212903.58VRH%steffen@sdaoden.eu>:
 |Steffen Nurpmeso wrote in
 | <20210523004836.gTA8l%steffen@sdaoden.eu>:
 | ...
 |||> Good idea.  I've further changed the Subject: to reflect the flow \
 |||> of the
 |||> discussion.
 || ...
 |||> I also wonder if the pager wars are basically over and less(1) \
 |||> won them.
 |||
 |||That's certainly what I thought...
 || ..
 ||
 ||Ever since less(1) started supporting OSC 8 "Hyperlinks in
 ||Terminal Emulators" as of version 566 i wanted to rewrite my
 ||mdocmx(7) extension to be based upon the OSC 8 sequences that now
 ||become more and more common.
 ...
 |  \X'tty osc8 [id ID] [uri URI]'

Much much better approach indeed.

Mind you, since mdocmx is sitting around since 2014/5 for my
personal fun, but OSC 8 is a nice standard that is available in
a growing number of software...
Please let me attach patches for less (v586 aka git repo, also at
[1]) which implements searching for OSC 8 sequences, grotty (git
repo from a few days ago, also at [2]) that implements the above
\X'', and a readily prepared manual page (from mdocmx, for fun).

You can look at the manual page in a less>=566 via -R, and all
will appear as desired (for mdocmx).  If you would patch less, you
could type ^A (control-A) and enter the anchor to jump to.  This
works even for external manual pages.  (For less, when going over
git: autoreconf;make -f Makefile.aut;make.)

I think i will ask Mr. Nudelman again whether he is interested in
the patch of implementing OSC 8 id= searches.
You know, i really like being able to stay in less :)

Anyhow, with the above OSC 8 things like docbook and other XY-
to-manual page converters could easily pimp the manual pages they
produce.

  [1] https://ftp.sdaoden.eu/less-osc8-search.patch
  [2] https://ftp.sdaoden.eu/grotty-osc8.patch

Ciao,

P.S.: I have not tested the grotty patch with any other groff but
the 1.22.3 i have here.  Just made it fit nicely in 1.22.4 aka git
head.

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)

less-osc8-search.patch
Description: Text Data

grotty-osc8.patch
Description: Text Data

mdocmx.dat
Description: Text document