MAN V1.0 NAME man - display information about topic from manual pages and/or do something even more useful SYNOPSIS man DESCRIPTION Man is a program similar to the **ix 'man' command. But as there is no documentation of the Amiga commands on disk (except ARP), you'll have to build your own information 'data base'. Additionally to that you are able to execute files or scripts or whatever you like... To use man, just create a directory (you don't have to, but it will for sure help your harddisk [you must be joking, you wanna use man on a disk ?]) and assign the logic path 'man:' to it, e.g.: assign man: dh0:manuals To view files, man uses the program 'less'. You may change this any time. Then, all you have to do is to copy the files you want to use for documentation in it. To view the file, just type 'man' and the name of the file. You may use any legal AmigaDos filename, but remember you're *ALWAYS* in the MAN:-directory, do don't give it something like: man dh0:s/startup-sequence as the Dos just isn't able to work with a path 'man:dh0:s/startup-sequence'... But now to the interesting part of the story, the special functions. First of all you have to create a file 'manuals' in the man:-directory, which contains the line: START_MAN at the beginning of the file and the line: END_MAN at the end. Any other text before START_MAN and after END_MAN is ignored, so you may put any remarks and explanations there... BTW, there shouldn't be any empty lines between START_MAN and END_MAN, as this might confuse man (I know that's not nice, but it's almost 11 p.m. now and I don't wanna do anymore on it...). The next thing you have to do is to make sure how many characters 16 and 4 is on your local text editor. Start a new line and type the name your command is to be known as. But only use up to 16 characters (well, you may use up to 20, but only the first 16 are checked). Then, fill the name up until you have the 16 chars (only with spaces!), and add 4 more spaces. To use some special manual-path for doc-files, just enter the full path to it now. But watch out! No Spaces may be used for this option (spaces are allowed for commands!), as a space is used for filename delimiter. If you want to call a command, first type a '!', then the full command line. E.g., suppose you have a file 'fishdisks' (a complete list of Fred's disks, about 360K) in the dir 'dh0:div.' and you want to edit it with an editor named 'ed' (no, please not the C=A-Ed !!![Isn't there anybody out there who can convince C=A to put a new editor on their disks ?]). You want to get the list by typing 'man fish'. Then you have to enter the following: fish !ed dh0:div./fishdisks ^ 12 spaces^#### <- plus 4 more spaces Now, type 'man fish', and voila, an editor should pop up (probably saying you don't have a directory 'dh0:div.' or a file 'fishdisks'...). Works fine, does it? To do more than one command, just write a small script file that does 'em, and execute it via 'execute '. You may put comments behind the different entries. For normal files, a space will do as a delimiter, but for commands you have to use the ';' (DOS does the job for me, it's just a standard comment then...). If you use filenames with spaces, you'll have to put quotes (") on both sides of the whole path. Using multiple doc files ------------------------ By using the 'manuals' file, you may print out several doc files just by putting the same name in the file twice (or even more), e.g.: man man1 man man2 Typing 'man man' will give you both files (I'm used to that from our Apollos) (less is started with run, so man doesn't wait for less' completion). A little trick at the end: you can view the 'manuals' file easily by typing 'man manuals', as this treats this file as a standard doc file. BUGS 'Man' (no, not man, but my program) does *not* include any free bugs. Bugs may be bought at your local pet shop and placed in the program at your own wishes. Anyway, there may be any number of undesireable features (credits to L. Schwab for the last part of that...). Well, I don't think there can be *many* in that short piece of code (about 3 hours work all in all), and I didn't find any up to now. Anyway, bug reports will be welcome, either eMail or paper. As I'm not sure about how much longer I'll have my Bitnet-Account [Garry@DGIHRZ01.BITNET], or if you can't reach me via eMail, just get out a piece of paper, some special disposable word processor (pencil) and send it to the following address: [if you happen to live in West Germany, a call might do to... {and if you live in some other corner of this small world and have too much money --- I do speak english; if you do too, just give me a call!}]) (phew, has anybody got a fourth and fifth kind of brackets?) (where did I start with them brackets? Oh yeah, I was talking about bug reports). 'Normal' Mail address: Garry Glendown Gueldene Kammer 35 (If you speak \TeX, make that 'G\"uldene') 6430 Bad Hersfeld West Germany Tel.: 06621-73483 or, US mail: Garry Glendown Box R APO NY 09141 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Update on June 20th, 1989: Man V1.1 To tell MAN to check for several paths, insert a line like: PATH ^ Space before the START_MAN command. Up to 10 paths may be defined (all must begin at the first column with the 'PATH ' statement. And don't add any extra spaces!). All these are scanned (as well as the 'man:' path). Also, LESS won't open up any more if there is no manual you want in the 'man:'-directory. But no checking is done for files named in the manuals-file! Example: PATH man:autodocs/ ^ make sure your path ends with a '/' or a ':'! To use an other text viewer than 'less', insert the line: VIEW: (before the START_MAN - line!). I'd advise you to use run, runback or arun so that multiple available files are shown. Example: VIEW:run MoreOrLess ------------------------------------------------------------------- Update on August 8th, 1989: Man V1.2 As of this version, command line arguments are supported: -v To use a custom file viewer, add the path and filename after the '-v'-option. This overides the default file viewer and the one specified in the 'manuals'-file. -p adds another path to the paths found in the 'manuals'-file. -f If you use this option, only the first file found will be displayed. -d displays the paths defined by CLI-parameter and in the 'manuals'-file and the current file viewer. No manual will be displayed. 'Man' will now assume that the last string without a '-' in front of it is the manual you wish to see.