[219] in Release_7.7_team
release suggestion: /usr/athena/bin/man for solaris
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (yandros@MIT.EDU)
Sun Dec 4 20:41:31 1994
From: yandros@MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 20:41:26 +0500
To: release-team@MIT.EDU
I'd like to suggest that the release team include a version of the
`man' program in the standard path of Athena solaris users that does
not require that `windex' files exist and be fully updated. Right now
users who do things like ``add consult; man foo'' are likely to get an
incorrect ``No manual entry for foo'' message, because the windex file
is nonexistant or out of date. This situation would be aleviated by
the introduction of a tool or tools for updating windex files on
non-solaris machines (which is on my todo list but is not near the top
- I'm sure this is true of other people, as well).
As an alternative, the default configuration for the man program could
include the `-F' option, overriding the requirement that the windex
file be searched before any other searching is done. This has the
advantage that the windex indexes are used, but has the disadvantage
that any preexisting man configuration will likely need to be redone
(which requires a possible user-visible change and the acompanying
advertising program).
It's worth noting that an ideal world would have us using versions of
man tools that understood windex files on all platforms (even AIX ;-),
but that this ideal world would also require that software package
maintainers make sure that the manpages they install have the
appropriate NROFF formatting macros to cause a windex file entry to be
generated (by far, not all of them do. SIPB has encountered this
problem in the past, and dealt simply by editting the manpage, a
somewhat inelegant solution).
Thank you for your consideration,
chad
