From: ienaga AT strg DOT sony DOT co DOT jp (Taro Ienaga)
Subject: Re: Manual Page (replacement of man command)
21 Sep 1998 17:09:49 -0700
Message-ID: <9809210726.AA11502.cygnus.gnu-win32@cdromssc.strg.sony.co.jp>
References: <718$Bi84pfB AT mike DOT franken DOT de>
To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com

Thanks all,

My purpose to implement winman command replaces unix man command, as
Michael (Hirmke) written below, to handle .html and support web
browsers because:

  1. man command is not included in Gnu-Win32 standard package.

  2. I need to make manual pages for my own tools.

  3. I'm not familiar with troff language but write easily with html.

  4. If manual pages is written with html and showen with web browers,
     I think there are a lot of advantage for original unix man
     command because of powerful function of web browers - forward and
     backward scrolling, printing, links and more...

  5. I don't like to open the web browser manually when look up manual
     pages because normally I'm on command console line in such
     stuation.

Now, winman works fine on Win98 (japanese edition).  The current status,
problems are as follows:

<problem1>
  i. The source codes are written in working time.  I need to rewrite
     these from full scratch in my private time.  Please wait.

    *Gnu-win32 runs under Windows 95/98 emurator for Mac?  It's a
     cheapest solution for me.  I have a PowerBook 2300c/100 with
     56 MB RAM.  (I don't mind if it runs very slow.)

<current status>
  i. The contents of winman package:

     Makefile      - Build winopen command only now.
     winman        - Main shell (/bin/sh) script file to search paths.
     winopen.c     - Genenal file opener.  Used to open .html with the
                     default web browser in case of winman.
     winman.html   - winman manual page.

    (winopen.html) - (Not yet.  winopen manual page.)
    (README)       - (Not yet.)
    (Other Documents...)

 ii. winman searchs given title.html in the default search path
     /Cygnus/man or the value of WINMANPATH and open the file
     with the default file opener /Cygnus/local/bin/winopen or
     the value of WINOPEN.

iii. winman does not support sections as /Cygnus/man/man1.

 iv. All manual pages must be in drive C (the drive letter is
     changable if you edit top of winman shell script.  Of course if
     define new environment variable, no code change is needed but I
     wander if that is good way).
     winman and winopen don't support the mount system.
     (eg. /Cygnus/man must be equal to C:\Cygnus\man.)

    *not support files and directories includes character '/' in ther
     name and I will not support in future release.

<problem2>
  i. The directry problem (/Cygnus/man, /Cygnus/local/bin).
     There are betters???


Thanks,
Taro Ienaga (This mail depends on my personal stance.)

P.S - latest version winman.html is attached last of this mail as text
      view and html source.

Michael Hirmke wrote:
>> Hi Michael,
>> 
>> [...]
>> >> Then winman searchs file 'command.html' in the pathes specified by the
>> >> emviroment variables WINMANPAH and open it with the defalt web browser.
>> >>
>> [...]
>> >Unless you can do much better than has been done already by numerous people,
>> >I would not bother.  There were, over the years, a number of implementations.
>> 
>> Uhm, perhaps you or me got him wrong ?
>> As I understood, he wants to write a replacement for the man command
>> itself, not a program to create html from man files !

/// 1. winman.html (text view) ////////////////////////////////////////////

NAME

    winman - open reference manual pages with the default web browser

SYNOPSIS

    winman title

DESCRIPTION

    winman opens infomation from the reference manuals with the
    default web browser.

ENVIRONMENT

    WINMANPATH
        If set, its value overrides /Cygnus/man as the default search
        path.

    WINOPEN
        If set, its value overrides /Cygnus/local/bin/winopen as the
        default file opener.

NOTES

    Current directory ('.') specified in WINMANPATH is always ignored
    because of security.

/// 2. winman.html (html source) //////////////////////////////////////////

<HTML>

<HEAD>
<TITLE>
winman
</TITLE>
</HEAD>

<BODY BGCOLOR="FFFFFF">

NAME

<BLOCKQUOTE>
winman - open reference manual pages with the default web browser
</BLOCKQUOTE>

SYNOPSIS

<BLOCKQUOTE>
winman title
</BLOCKQUOTE>

DESCRIPTION

<BLOCKQUOTE>
winman opens infomation from the reference manuals with the default
web browser.
</BLOCKQUOTE>

ENVIRONMENT
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<DL>
<DT> WINMANPATH
<DD>
If set, its value overrides /Cygnus/man as the default search path.
</DL>
<DL>
<DT> WINOPEN
<DD>
If set, its value overrides /Cygnus/local/bin/winopen as the default 
file opener.
</DL>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

NOTES

<BLOCKQUOTE>
Current directory ('.') specified in WINMANPATH is always ignored
because of security.
</BLOCKQUOTE>

</BODY>

</HTML>
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