Re: a Q quotation macro for man(7) (was: groff man(7) extensions)

[G. Branden Robinson]

[self-follow-up]

At 2022-12-13T12:23:56-0600, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> At 2022-12-13T17:54:22+0000, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> > If the idea is to entirely do away with producing quotes manually

Ya gotta be careful around Ralph--he slips in these antecedents that
render the question ill-posed...

The idea is not "to entirely do away with producting quotes manually".

They might still be necessary for lengthy quotes (say, longer than one
input line) or complex situations involving nesting of quotations with
typeface changes, or in cases where a man page author simply wants to
retain control of quotation glyph selection (as Commonwealth folks might
prefer).

It is possible to do this today, and has been for years.  The problem is
not that quotation is impossible in man(7); it's that it is, apparently,
too difficult.  People reach for `.B` and `.I` instead.

`.Q` would make it just as easy as those.

.Q "Just quote it,"
he said.

If one were to observe that \fB and \fI are also easy, then I would
agree that \(lq and \(rq (or \(oq and \(cq) should not constitute
significantly higher barriers than font selection escape sequences, and
yet, apparently, they do.

That's why I think groff should add a `Q` macro for quotation to man(7).

Regards,
Branden

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature