Subject: Re: what *roff macro set to use for writing documentation?
To: None <tech-pkg@netbsd.org>
From: Bernd Salbrechter <bernd@mycity.at>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 08/23/1999 23:02:53
In-Replay-To: <199908210029.RAA09780@elbe.ghs.com>

On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:29:37 -0700 (PDT) Ross Harvey <ross@ghs.com> wrote

> > From: Lou Glassy <glassy@caesar.cs.montana.edu>
> >
> > dear all,
> >
> > I'd like to take the 'Package.txt' documentation for 
> > the NetBSD package system, and transmogrify it into 
> > a *roff document (which with other magic, could be 
> > converted into TeX, HTML, etc)...
> >
> > Question:  what *roff macro package would you recommend
> > to use for this sort of documentation?
> >
> > It looks like some of the docs under /usr/share/doc/psd
> > use the me package.  Is this the recommended one to use
> > for new documentation?
> 
> No, it should be done in -mdoc (see `man 7 mdoc', and `man 7 mdoc.samples')
> for a variety of reasons.

I would say that this sort of documentations need a "table of contents"
and benefit from "decimal numbered sections", which -me and -ms provide,
but -mdoc not. Or have I missed some thing in -mdoc?

...
>     *	very nice looking output
For man-pages, but for longer documents (see above)?

...
>     *	we have the -mdoc2html macros in-tree
A few days ago I saw an article in <news://gnu.groff.bug> about an html
back end and that someone starting up to maintain groff. (If someone is
interest in the thread, I have saved at least the interesting parts.)

...
> But troff-ing Packages.txt is, in general, an excellent idea, and actually

As would it be for INSTALL. Both are long documents, which will need a
table of contents with correct page numbers.

...

Have a nice day
Bernd Salbrechter