ckk+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Chris Koenigsberg) (05/22/91)
This is a common problem with the ATK Help program and its rofftext
object. There are Ultrix and SunOS man pages which fail to display
correctly in Help for similar reasons.
Basically, I think the only way to get Help/rofftext to display these
correctly is to tinker with your ${ANDREWDIR}/lib/tmac/tmac.atk - you
may have to add every vendor-specific macro used by every man page to
the tmac.atk, because Help/rofftext does not know to look in
/usr/lib/tmac/tmac.an for macro definitions when processing man pages,
it only looks in ${ANDREWDIR}/lib/tmac/tmac.atk.
If you're running rofftext by hand, you can give it the "rofftext -man"
switch just as you'd invoke "nroff -man" by hand, but the Help
application doesn't point the rofftext object at the /usr/lib macros the
way it should.
There are other problems inherent to Help/rofftext's handling of man
pages that we (CMU's Academic Computing and Media) have reported to the
ITC over the years, and we would love to see them fixed before
patchlevel 10 is released. (hint hint :-) I guess we had given up by
now, but I'll mention it again just in case :-)
Another pet Help/rofftext peeve: many man pages do a ".so" to include a
different man page. But they assume that the current working directory
is /usr/man, so they do a ".so man3/foo.3" for example. And the "man"
program does a chdir to /usr/man (or whatever MANPATH element the file
was found under) before invoking nroff.
The rofftext object does NOT change the current working directory when
reading man pages the way the 'man' program does, and so this
relative-pathname reference fails.
Chris Koenigsberg, Senior User Consultant
ckk+@andrew.cmu.edu
Distributed Workstation Services, Carnegie-Mellon University
-------------------------
Excerpts from internet.info-andrew: 21-May-91 Help formatting problem
Susan Schwarz@northstar. (8475)
> I have recently ported NCAR Graphics V3.0 to our Sparcstations, IBM RTs
> and RS600s and am having trouble getting the NCAR man pages to appear
> correctly when using the ATK help utility. We are running ATK4 patch
> level 9. When I use help to display the man pages, many of the vowels
> are missing from the text. When I use the 'man' utility on them, the
> man pages appear correctly.
> The NCAR man files reference a specific troff macro file that comes
> with NCAR and I think that macro file may be causing the problemgk5g+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Gary Keim) (05/22/91)
Excerpts from misc: 21-May-91 Help formatting problem Susan Schwarz@northstar. (8475) > I have recently ported NCAR Graphics V3.0 to our Sparcstations, IBM RTs > and RS600s and am having trouble getting the NCAR man pages to appear > correctly when using the ATK help utility. Here is how it looks to me when viewed via help. Let me know if this isn't correct. DASHSMTH(3NCARG) NCAR GRAPHICS NAME DASHSMTH - Software dashed-line package with character capability and smoothing SYNOPSIS CALL DASHDC (IPAT,JCRT,JSIZE) CALL DASHDB (IPAT) CALL CURVED (X,Y,N) CALL FRSTD (X,Y) CALL VECTD (X,Y) CALL LINED (XA,XB,YA,YB) no smoothing CALL LASTD Called after last point is processed DESCRIPTION Latest Revision August 1987 Purpose DASHSMTH is a software dashed-line package with smoothing capabilities. DASHSMTH is DASHCHAR with smoothing features added. Usage First, either CALL DASHDB (IPAT) where IPAT is a 16-bit dash pattern as described in the subroutine DASHDB (see DASHLINE documentation), or CALL DASHDC (IPAT,JCRT,JSIZE) as described below. Then, call any of the following: CALL CURVED (X,Y,N) CALL FRSTD (X,Y) CALL VECTD (X,Y) CALL LASTD LASTD is called only after the last point of a line has been processed in VECTD. The following may also be called, but no smoothing will result: CALL LINED (XA,YA,XB,YB) ARGUMENTS On Input to DASHDC IPAT A character string of arbitrary length (60 characters seems to be a practical limit) that specifies the dash pattern to be used. A dollar sign in IPAT indicates solid; an apostrophe indicates a gap; blanks are ignored. Any character in IPAT that is not a dollar sign, apostrophe, or blank is considered to be part of a line label. Each line label can be at most 15 characters in length. Sufficient white space is reserved in the dashed line for writing line labels. JCRT The length in plotter address units per $ or apostrophe. JSIZE Is the size of the plotted characters: * If between 0 and 3, it is 1., 1.5, 2. and 3. times an 8 plotter address unit width. * If greater than 3, it is the character width in plotter address units. To Other Line-Drawing Routines CURVED(X,Y,N) X and Y are arrays of world coordinate values of length N or greater. Line segments obeying the specified dash pattern are drawn to connect the N points. FRSTD(X,Y) The current pen position is set to the world coordinate value (X,Y). VECTD(X,Y) A line segment is drawn between the world coordinate value (X,Y) and the most recent pen position. (X,Y) then becomes the most recent pen position. LINED(XA,XB,YA,YB) A line is drawn between world coordinate values (XA,YA) and (XB,YB). LASTD When using FRSTD and VECTD, LASTD must be called (no arguments needed). LASTD sets up the calls to the smoothing routines KURV1S and KURV2S. On Output All arguments are unchanged for all routines. Note When switching from the regular plotting routines to a dashed-line package the first call should not be to VECTD. Entry Points DASHDB, DASHDC, CURVED, FRSTD, VECTD, LINED, RESET, LASTD, KURV1S, KURV2S, CFVLD, FDVDLD, DRAWPV, DASHBD Common Blocks INTPR, DASHD1, DASHD2, DDFLAG, DCFLAG, DSAVE1, DSAVE2, DSAVE3, DSAVE5, CFFLAG, SMFLAG, DFFLAG, FDFLAG Required Library Routines The ERPRT77 package and the SPPS. Required GKS Level 0A I/O Plots solid or dashed lines, possibly with characters at intervals in the line. The lines may also be smoothed. Precision Single Language FORTRAN 77 History Written in October 1973. Made portable in September 1977 for use with all machines that support plotters with up to 15 bit resolution. Converted to FORTRAN 77 and GKS in June 1984. Algorithm Points for each line segment are processed and passed to the routines, KURV1S and KURV2S, which compute splines under tension passing through these points. New points are generated between the given points, resulting in smooth lines. Accuracy Plus or minus .5 plotter address units per call. There is no cumulative error. Timing About three times as long as DASHCHAR. Gary Keim ATK Group