Re: [gtk-list] Re: Man pages, call for help

[Joel Becker <jlbec ocala cs miami edu>]

On Wed, 29 Jul 1998, Andy Kahn wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 29, 1998 at 06:29:04PM +0100, Damon Chaplin wrote:
> 
> until the rest of the unix world does away with man pages, i for
> one, would still like to have them in addition to html and whatever
> else suits your fancy.  i'm sure there are many who still want
> traditional man pages too, as well as those who don't have lynx
> and gnuinfo.

	I think man pages are very important.  They are a far quicker, far
easier reference.  If I am programming, and can't remember the specific
flag I want for flock(), eg LOCK_SH, I can call it up really quickly.  I
don't want to have to wait for a browser to load.  The same goes for GTK+
functions.  Even a small, quick browser, like kfm's, or even lynx, takes a
lot more time than man.
	As for info, I don't like info.  I am not a major emacs mavin, and
navigating info is a real pain.  In Xemacs, it is ok.  But i don't want to
have to toggle windows, etc.  It is much easier to fire up a man page in a
shell.
	I think that we should have man, info, and HTML pages.  But I
expect that I would use the man pages 99% of the time.  As would others, I
suspect.  AIX 4.3 came with a new, full doc set in HTML.  It is very, VERY
well done.   But I only find myself using it if I cannot find what I want
in the man pages.
	I actually started doing GTK+ man pages with pod a month ago, but
I got sidetracked.  I have about 10 pages complete, and the cvs structure
for a lot more.  I would house a cvs of pod pages, but you folks can't get
to me (firewall issues).

Joel

--

"He was a rock;
 Went straight for his own Armageddon.
 Face froze in a grin, ambulence flying in,
 I never drank again.
 Can't really call it a loss or a win."

                                  jlbec@ocala.cs.miami.edu
                                  gr311@cleveland.freenet.edu
                                  http://ocala.cs.miami.edu/~jlbec