Aw: Re: [RFC] Replace gnu groff in base by heirloom doctools

Steffen Nurpmeso <sdaoden_at_yandex.com> wrote:

> It seems you haven't checked at all.
> It seems to me that e.g. mdoc(7) of n-t-r seems to require quite
> a bit of work in order to be at all usable.

This is not completely true. It is usable, I did check it with all about 7000 manpages in the base of OpenBSD. But it does indeed also require further work.

Please note that FreeBSD uses mandoc(1) for formatting manpages. Groff in the base (or a replacement) is only a fallback.

> The macros i use for myself don't work with n-t-r, too: once
> i truly looked (a few months ago) i found that i would have to
> rewrite all traps and other positioning in order to get that
> right.

Please make a bug report ;)

> Despite that you seem to do what you want to do anyway, n-t-r is
> possibly a usable troff, if you go its way and deal with it you
> may be able to gain a bit nicer output _faster_ and without
> converting your beloved special fonts first, but in no way is
> n-t-r a _replacement_ for groff.

The groff version in the base is quite old and is there to have a *roff toolchain in the base and as a fallback solution for mandoc(1).  If one does serious typesetting (and wants to use groff) it is recommended to use the up-to-date version from ports.

Carsten