1 $Id: NEWS,v 1.2 2013/10/05 13:15:51 schwarze Exp $
3 This file lists the most important changes in the mdocml.bsd.lv distribution.
5 Changes in version 1.12.2, released on Oktober 5, 2013
7 * The mdoc(7) to man(7) converter, to be called as mandoc -Tman,
8 is now fully functional.
9 * The mandoc(1) utility now supports the -Ios (default operating system)
10 input option, and the -Tutf8 output mode now actually works.
11 * The mandocdb(8) utility no longer truncates existing databases when
12 starting to build new ones, but only replaces them when the build
14 * The man(7) parser now supports the PD macro (paragraph distance),
15 and (for GNU man-ext compatibility only) EX (example block) and EE
16 (example end). Plus several bugfixes regarding indentation, line
17 breaks, and vertical spacing, and regarding RS following TP.
18 * The roff(7) parser now supports the \f(BI (bold+italic) font escape,
19 the \z (zero cursor advance) escape and the cc (change control
20 character) and it (input line trap) requests. Plus bugfixes regarding
21 the \t (tab) escape, nested escape sequences, and conditional requests.
22 * In mdoc(7), several bugs were fixed related to UTF-8 output of quoting
23 enclosures, delimiter handling, list indentation and horizontal and
24 vertical spacing, formatting of the Lk, %U, and %C macros, plus some
25 bugfixes related to the handling of syntax errors like badly nested
26 font blocks, stray Ta macros outside column lists, unterminated It Xo
27 blocks, and non-text children of Nm blocks.
28 * In tbl(7), the width of horizontal spans and the vertical spacing
29 around tables was corrected, and in man(7) files, a crash was fixed
30 that was triggered by some particular unclosed T{ macros.
31 * For mandoc developers, we now provide a tbl(3) library manual and
32 gmdiff, a very small, very simplistic groff-versus-mandoc output
34 * Provide this NEWS file.
36 Changes in version 1.12.1, released on March 23, 2012
38 * Significant work on apropos(1) and mandocdb(8). These tools are now
39 much more robust. A whatis(1) implementation is now handled as an
40 apropos(1) mode. These tools are also able to minimally handle
41 pre-formatted pages, that is, those already formatted by another
42 utility such as GNU troff.
43 * The man.cgi(7) script is also now available for wider testing.
44 It interfaces with mandocdb(8) manuals cached by catman(8).
45 HTML output is generated on-the-fly by libmandoc or internal
46 methods to convert pre-formatted pages.
47 * The mailing list archive for the discuss and tech lists are being
48 hosted by Gmane at gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.user and
49 gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.devel, respectively.
51 Changes in version 1.12.0, released on October 8, 2011
53 * This version features a new, work-in-progress mandoc(1) output mode:
54 -Tman. This mode allows a system maintainer to distribute man(7)
55 media for older systems that may not natively support mdoc(7), such
56 as old Solaris systems.
57 * The -Ofragment option was added to mandoc(1)'s -Thtml and -Txhtml modes.
58 * While adding features, an apropos(1) utility has been merged from the
59 mandoc-tools sandbox. This interfaces with mandocdb(8) for semantic
60 search of manual content. apropos(1) is different from the traditional
61 apropos primarily in allowing keyword search (such as for functions,
62 utilities, etc.) and regular expressions. Note that the calling
63 syntax for apropos is likely to change as it settles down.
64 * In documentation news, the mdoc(7) and man(7) manuals have been
65 made considerably more readable by adding MACRO OVERVIEW sections, by
66 moving the gory details of the LANGUAGE SYNTAX to the roff(7) manual,
67 and by moving the very technical MACRO SYNTAX sections down to the
69 * Furthermore, for tbl(7), the -Tascii mode horizontal spacing of tables
70 was rewritten completely. It is now compatible with groff(1), both
71 with and without frames and rulers.
72 * Nesting of indented blocks is now supported in man(7), and several
73 bugs were fixed regarding indentation and alignment.
74 * The page headers in mdoc(7) are now nicer for very long titles.
76 Changes in version 1.11.7, released on September 2, 2011
78 * Added demandoc(1) utility for stripping away macros and escapes.
79 This replaces the historical deroff(1) utility.
80 * Also improved the mdoc(7) and man(7) manuals.
82 Changes in version 1.11.6, released on August 16, 2011
84 * Handling of tr macro in roff(7) implemented. This makes Perl
85 documentation much more readable. Hyphenation is also now enabled in
86 man(7) format documents. Many other general improvements have been
89 Changes in version 1.11.5, released on July 24, 2011
91 * Significant eqn(7) improvements. mdocml can now parse arbitrary eqn
92 input (although few GNU extensions are accepted, nor is mixing
93 low-level roff with eqn). See the eqn(7) manual for details.
94 For the time being, equations are rendered as simple in-line text.
95 The equation parser satisfies the language specified in the
96 Second Edition User's Guide:
97 http://www.kohala.com/start/troff/v7man/eqn/eqn2e.ps
99 Changes in version 1.11.4, released on July 12, 2011
101 * Bug-fixes and clean-ups across all systems, especially in mandocdb(8)
102 and the man(7) parser. This release was significantly assisted by
103 participants in OpenBSD's c2k11. Thanks!
105 Changes in version 1.11.3, released on May 26, 2011
107 * Introduce locale-encoding of output with the -Tlocale output option and
108 Unicode escaped-character input. See mandoc(1) and mandoc_char(7),
109 respectively, for details. This allows for non-ASCII characters (e.g.,
110 \[u5000]) to be rendered in the locale's encoding, if said environment
111 supports wide-character encoding (if it does not, -Tascii is used
112 instead). Locale support can be turned off at compile time by removing
113 -DUSE_WCHAR in the Makefile, in which case -Tlocale is always a synonym
115 * Furthermore, multibyte-encoded documents, such as those in UTF-8, may
116 be on-the-fly recoded into mandoc(1) input by using the newly-added
117 preconv(1) utility. Note: in the future, this feature may be
118 integrated into mandoc(1).
120 Changes in version 1.11.2, released on May 12, 2011
122 * Corrected some installation issues in version 1.11.1.
123 * Further migration to libmandoc.
124 * Initial public release (this utility is very much under development)
125 of mandocdb(8). This utility produces keyword databases of manual
126 content, which features semantic querying of manual content.
128 Changes in version 1.11.1, released on April 4, 2011
130 * The earlier libroff, libmdoc, and libman soup have been merged into
131 a single library, libmandoc, which manages all aspects of parsing
132 real manuals, from line-handling to tbl(7) parsing.
133 * Beyond this structural change, initial eqn(7) functionality is in
134 place. For the time being, this is limited to the recognition of
135 equation blocks; future version of mdocml will expand upon this
137 * As usual, many general fixes and improvements have also occurred.
138 In particular, a great deal of redundancy and superfluous code has
139 been removed with the merging of the backend libraries.
141 Changes in version 1.10.9, released on January 7, 2011
143 * Many back-end fixes have been implemented: argument handling (quoting),
144 man(7) improvements, error/warning classes, and many more.
145 * Initial tbl(7) functionality (see the "TS", "TE", and "T&" macros in
146 the roff(7) manual) has been merged from tbl.bsd.lv. Output is still
147 minimal, especially for -Thtml and -Txhtml, but manages to at least
148 display data. This means that mandoc(1) now has built-in support
149 for two troff preprocessors via libroff: soelim(1) and tbl(1).
151 Changes in version 1.10.8, released on December 24, 2010
153 * Significant improvements merged from OpenBSD downstream, including
154 - many new roff(7) components,
155 - in-line implementation of troff's soelim(1),
156 - broken-block handling,
157 - overhauled error classifications, and
158 - cleaned up handling of error conditions.
159 * Also overhauled the -Thtml and -Txhtml output modes. They now display
160 readable output in arbitrary browsers, including text-based ones like
161 lynx(1). See HTML and XHTML manuals in the DOCUMENTATION section
162 for examples. Attention: available style-sheet classes have been
163 considerably changed! See the example.style.css file for details.
164 Lastly, libmdoc and libman have been cleaned up and reduced in size
167 Changes in version 1.10.6, released on September 27, 2010
169 * Calling conventions for mandoc(1) have changed: -W improved and -f
171 * Non-ASCII characters are also now uniformly discarded.
172 * Lots of documentation improvements.
173 * Many incremental fixes accomodating for groff's more interesting
175 * Lastly, pod2man(1) preambles are now fully accepted after some
176 considerable roff(7) and special character support.
178 Changes in version 1.10.5, released on July 27, 2010
180 * Primarily a bug-fix and polish release, but including -Tpdf support
181 in mandoc(1) by way of "Summer of Code". Highlights:
182 * fix "Sm" and "Bd" handling
183 * fix end-of-sentence handling for embedded sentences
184 * polish man(7) documentation
185 * document all mdoc(7) macros
186 * polish mandoc(1) -Tps output
187 * lots of internal clean-ups in character escapes
188 * un-break literal contexts in man(7) documents
189 * improve -Thtml output for -man
190 * add mandoc(1) -Tpdf support
192 Changes in version 1.10.4, released on July 12, 2010
194 * Lots of features developed during both "Summer of Code" and the
195 OpenBSD c2k10 hackathon:
196 * minimal "ds" roff(7) symbols are supported
197 * "Bk" mdoc(7) support
198 * beautified SYNOPSIS section output
199 * variable font-width and paper-size support in mandoc(1) -Tps output
200 * acceptance of scope-block breakage in mdoc(7)
201 * clarify error message status
202 * many minor bug-fixes and formatting issues resolved
204 Changes in version 1.10.2, released on June 19, 2010
206 * Small release featuring text-decoration in -Tps output,
207 a few minor relaxations of errors, and some optimisations.
209 Changes in version 1.10.1, released on June 7, 2010
211 * This primarily focusses on the "Bl" and "It" macros described in
212 mdoc(7). Multi-line column support is now fully compatible with groff,
213 as are implicit list entries for columns.
214 * Removed manuals(7) in favour of http://manpages.bsd.lv.
215 * The way we handle the SYNOPSIS section (see the SYNOPSIS documentation
216 in MANUAL STRUCTURE) has also been considerably simplified compared
218 * Furthermore, the -Owidth=width output option has been added to -Tascii,
220 * Lastly, initial PostScript output has been added with the -Tps option
221 to mandoc(1). It's brutally simple at the moment: fixed-font, with no
224 Changes in version 1.10.0, released on May 29, 2010
226 * Release consisting of the results from the m2k10 hackathon and up-merge
227 from OpenBSD. This requires a significant note of thanks to Ingo
228 Schwarze (OpenBSD) and Joerg Sonnenberger (NetBSD) for their hard work,
229 and again to Joerg for hosting m2k10. Highlights (mostly cribbed from
230 Ingo's m2k10 report) follow in no particular order:
231 * a libroff preprocessor in front of libmdoc and libman stripping out
232 roff(7) instructions;
233 * end-of-sentence (EOS) detection in free-form and macro lines;
234 * correct handling of tab-separated columnar lists in mdoc(7);
235 * improved main calling routines to optionally use mmap(3) for better
237 * cleaned up exiting when invoked as -Tlint or over multiple files
239 * error and warning message handling re-written to be unified for
240 libroff, libmdoc, and libman;
241 * handling of badly-nested explicit-scoped macros;
242 * improved free-form text parsing in libman and libmdoc;
243 * significant GNU troff compatibility improvements in -Tascii,
244 largely in terms of spacing;
245 * a regression framework for making sure the many fragilities of GNU
246 troff aren't trampled in subsequent work;
247 * support for -Tascii breaking at hyphens encountered in free-form text;
248 * and many more minor fixes and improvements
250 Changes in version 1.9.25, released on May 13, 2010
252 * Fixed handling of "\*(Ba" escape.
253 * Backed out -fno-ign-chars (pointless complexity).
254 * Fixed erroneous breaking of literal lines.
255 * Fixed SYNOPSIS breaking lines before non-initial macros.
256 * Changed default section ordering.
257 * Most importantly, the framework for end-of-sentence double-spacing is
258 in place, now implemented for the "end-of-sentence, end-of-line" rule.
259 * This is a stable roll-back point before the mandoc hackathon in Rostock!
261 Changes in version 1.9.24, released on May 9, 2010
263 * Rolled back break-at-hyphen.
264 * -DUGLY is now the default (no feature splits!).
265 * Free-form text is not de-chunked any more: lines are passed
266 whole-sale into the front-end, including whitespace.
267 * Added mailing lists.
269 Changes in version 1.9.23, released on April 7, 2010
271 * mdocml has been linked to the OpenBSD build.
272 * This version incorporates many small changes, mostly from patches
273 by OpenBSD, allowing crufty manuals to slip by with warnings instead
275 * Some subtle semantic issues, such as punctuation scope, have also
277 * Lastly, some issues with -Thtml have been fixed, which prompted an
278 update to the online manual pages style layout.
280 Changes in version 1.9.22, released on March 31, 2010
282 * Adjusted merge of the significant work by Ingo Schwarze
283 in getting "Xo" blocks (block full implicit, e.g., "It"
284 for non-columnar lists) to work properly. This isn't
285 enabled by default: you must specify -DUGLY as a compiler
286 flag (see the Makefile for details).
288 Changes in version 1.9.20, released on March 30, 2010
290 * More efforts to get roff instructions in man(7) documents under
291 control. Note that roff instructions embedded in line-scoped,
292 next-line macros (e.g. "B") are not supported.
293 * Leading punctuation for mdoc(7) macros, such as "Fl ( ( a",
294 are now correctly handled.
296 Changes in version 1.9.18, released on March 27, 2010
298 * Many fixes (largely pertaining to scope)
299 and improvements (e.g., handling of apostrophe-control macros,
300 which fixes the strange "BR" seen in some macro output)
301 to handling roff instructions in man(7) documents.
303 Changes in version 1.9.17, released on March 25, 2010
305 * Accept perlpod(1) standard preamble.
306 * Also accept (and discard) "de", "dei", "am", "ami", and "ig"
309 Changes in version 1.9.16, released on March 22, 2010
311 * Inspired by patches and bug reports by Ingo Schwarze,
312 allowed man(7) to accept non-printing elements to be nested
313 within next-line scopes, such as "br" within "B" or "TH",
315 * Longsoon architecture also noted and Makefile cleaned up.
317 Changes in version 1.9.15, released on February 18, 2010
319 * Moved to our new BSD.lv home.
320 * XHTML is now an acceptable output mode for mandoc(1);
321 * "Xr" made more compatible with groff;
322 * "Vt" fixed when invoked in SYNOPSIS;
323 * "\\" escape removed;
324 * end-of-line white-space detected for all lines;
325 * subtle bug fixed in list display for some modes;
326 * compatibility layer checked in for compilation in diverse
328 * and column lengths handled correctly.
330 For older releases, see the ChangeLog files
331 in http://mdocml.bsd.lv/snapshots/ .