Hi Dirk. On 3/25/23 21:47, Dirk Gouders wrote: > Hi Alejandro, > > first of all, chances are that you consider this post as spam, because > this list is about linux manual pages and not pagers. No, I don't. > In that case > please accept my apologies and ignore this post. > > My reasoning was that readers here have some interest in manual pages > and therefore probably also in pagers that claim to "understand" manual > pages. My hope is that even if you consider this post inappropriate you > will perhaps suggest some more appropriate place for such discussion. > > Not long ago, I noticed a discussion [1] about what pagers can and > cannot do. That was interesting to me, because I am currently playing > with a pager that claims to have a focus on manual pages. > > I will try to not waste your time and attach the manual page and a link > to a short (3:50) demo video. To me it is absolutely OK should you just > ignore this spam post, but perhaps you find lsp(1) interesting enough > for further discussion. If you had a Debian package, I might try it :) Or maybe a Makefile to build from source... What is this meson.build? > > Best regards, > > Dirk > > [1] https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-man/index.html#24494 > [2] https://youtu.be/syGT4POgTAw > > LSP(1) User commands LSP(1) > > NAME > lsp - list pages (or least significant pager) > > SYNOPSIS > lsp [options] [file_name]... > > lsp -h > > lsp -v > > DESCRIPTION > lsp is a terminal pager that assists in paging through data, usually > text — no more(1), no less(1). I'd say it does quite a lot more than paging... We could say this is some info(1) equivalent for manual pages. With the benefit that you don't need to implement such a system from scratch, but just reusing the existing tools (apropos, man, whatis, ...). It seems something like what I would have written if I had to implement info(1) from scratch. I wish GNU guys had thought of this instead of developing their own incompatible system. > > The given files are opened if file names are given as options. > Otherwise lsp assumes input from stdin and tries to read from there. > > In addition to it’s ability to aid in paging through text files lsp has > limited knowledge about manual pages and offers some help in viewing > them: > > • Manual pages usually refer to other manual pages and lsp allows to > navigate those references and to visit them as new files with the > ability to also navigate through all opened manual pages or other > files. Out of curiosity, is this implemented with heuristics? Or do you rely on semantic mdoc(7) macros? If it's the first, how do you handle exit(1)? Is it a reference, or is it just code (with the meaning exit(EXIT_FAILURE))? If it's the second, I guess it doesn't support that in man(7), right? At least until MR is released. > > Here, lsp tries to minimize frustration caused by unavailable > references and verifies their existance before offering them as > references that can be visited. Do you mark these as broken references? It is interesting to know that there's a reference which you don't have installed. It may prompt you to install it and read it. When I see a broken reference, I usually find it with `apt-file find man3/page.3`, and then install the relevant package. > > • In windowing environments lsp does complete resizes when windows > get resized. This means it also reloads the manual page to fit the > new window size. Good. This I miss it in less(1) often. Not sure if they had any strong reason to not support that. > > • Search for manual pages using apropos(1); in the current most basic > form it lists all known manual pages ready for text search and > visiting referenced manual pages. What does it bring that `apropos * | less` can't do? If you're going the of info(1) with full-blown system, it seems reasonable, but I never really liked all that if it's just a new terminal and a command away from me. > > • lsp has an experimental TOC mode. > > This is a three-level folding mode trying to list only section and > sub-section names for quick navigation in manual pages. Nice, and this an important feature missing feature in info(1), as I reported recently. :) Maybe they are interested in something similar. > > The TOC is created using naive heuristics which works well to some > extend, but it might be incomplete. Users should keep that in mind. I guess the heuristics are just `^[^ ]` for SH and `^ [^ ]` for SS, right? I tipically use something similar for searching for command flags, and as you say, these just work. Cheers, Alex > > OPTIONS > All options can be given on the command line or via the environment > variable LSP_OPTIONS. The short version of toggles can also be used as > commands, e.g. you can input -i while paging through a file to toggle > case sensitivity for searches. > > -a, --load-apropos > Create an apropos pseudo-file. > > -c, --chop-lines > Toggle chopping of lines that do not fit the current screen width. > > -h, --help > Output help and exit. > > -i, --no-case > Toggle case sensitivity in searches. > > -I, --man-case > Turn on case sensitivity for names of manual pages. > > This is used for example to verify references to other manual > pages. > > -l, --log-file > Specify a path to where write debugging output. > > -n, --line-numbers > Toggle visible line numbers. > > -s, --search-string > Specify an initial search string. > > -v, --version > Output version information of lsp and exit. > > --no-color > Disable colored output. > > --reload-command > Specify command to load manual pages. Default is man. > > --verify-command > Specify command to verify the existance of references. Default is > man -w. > > --verify-with-apropos > Use the entries of the apropos pseudo-file for validation of > references. > > COMMANDS > Pg-Down / Pg-Up > Forward/backward one page, respectively. > > Key-Down / Key-Up / Mouse-Wheel down/up > Forward/backward one line, respectively. > > CTRL-l > In search mode: bring current match to top of the page. > > ESC > Turn off current highlighting of matches. > > TAB / S-TAB > Navigate to next/previous reference respectively. > > ENTER > > • If previous command was TAB or S-TAB: > > Open reference at point, i.e. call `man <reference>'. > > • In TOC-mode: > > Go to currently selected position in file. > > / > Start a forward search for regular expression. > > ? > Start a backward search for regular expression. > > B > Change buffer; choose from list. > > a > Create a pseudo-file with the output of `apropos .'. > > That pseudo-file contains short descriptions for all manual pages > known to the system; those manual pages can also be opened with TAB > / S-TAB and ENTER commands. > > b > Backward one page > > c > Close file currently paged. > > Exits lsp if it was the only/last file being paged. > > f > Forward one page > > h > Show online help with command summary. > > m > Open another manual page. > > n > Find next match in search. > > p > Find previous match in search. > > q > > • Exit lsp. > > • In TOC-mode: switch back to normal view. > > • In help-mode: close help file. > > ENVIRONMENT > LSP_OPTIONS > All command line options can also be specified using this variable. > > LSP_OPEN / LESSOPEN > Analogical to less(1), lsp supports an input preprocessor but > currently just the two basic forms: > > One that provides the path to a replacement file and the one that > writes the content to be paged to a pipe. > > SEE ALSO > apropos(1), less(1), man(1), more(1), pg(1) > > BUGS > Report bugs at https://github.com/dgouders/lsp > > alpha-1.0e-42 03/25/2023 LSP(1) -- <http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/> GPG key fingerprint: A9348594CE31283A826FBDD8D57633D441E25BB5
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