xref: /minix/external/bsd/mdocml/dist/NEWS (revision 0a6a1f1d)
1Id: NEWS,v 1.4 2013/12/31 11:28:20 schwarze Exp
2
3This file lists the most important changes in the mdocml.bsd.lv distribution.
4
5Changes in version 1.12.3, released on December 31, 2013
6
7 * In the mdoc(7) SYNOPSIS, line breaks and hanging indentation
8   now work correctly for .Fo/.Fa/.Fc and .Fn blocks.
9   Thanks to Franco Fichtner for doing part of the work.
10 * The mdoc(7) .Bk macro got some addititonal bugfixes.
11 * In mdoc(7) macro arguments, double quotes can now be quoted
12   by doubling them, just like in man(7).
13   Thanks to Tsugutomo ENAMI for the patch.
14 * At the end of man(7) macro lines, end-of-sentence spacing
15   now works.  Thanks to Franco Fichtner for the patch.
16 * For backward compatibility, the man(7) parser now supports the
17   man-ext .UR/.UE (uniform resource identifier) block macros.
18 * The man(7) parser now handles closing blocks that are not open
19   more gracefully.
20 * The man(7) parser now ignores blank lines right after .SH and .SS.
21 * In the man(7) formatter, reset indentation when leaving a block,
22   not just when entering the next one.
23 * The roff(7) .nr request now supports incrementing and decrementing
24   number registers and stops parsing the number right before the
25   first non-digit character.
26 * The roff(7) parser now supports the alternative escape sequence
27   syntax \C'uXXXX' for Unicode characters.
28 * The roff(7) parser now parses and ignores the .fam (font family)
29   and .hw (hyphenation points) requests and the \d and \u escape
30   sequences.
31 * The roff(7) manual got a new ESCAPE SEQUENCE REFERENCE.
32
33Changes in version 1.12.2, released on Oktober 5, 2013
34
35 * The mdoc(7) to man(7) converter, to be called as mandoc -Tman,
36   is now fully functional.
37 * The mandoc(1) utility now supports the -Ios (default operating system)
38   input option, and the -Tutf8 output mode now actually works.
39 * The mandocdb(8) utility no longer truncates existing databases when
40   starting to build new ones, but only replaces them when the build
41   actually succeeds.
42 * The man(7) parser now supports the PD macro (paragraph distance),
43   and (for GNU man-ext compatibility only) EX (example block) and EE
44   (example end).  Plus several bugfixes regarding indentation, line
45   breaks, and vertical spacing, and regarding RS following TP.
46 * The roff(7) parser now supports the \f(BI (bold+italic) font escape,
47   the \z (zero cursor advance) escape and the cc (change control
48   character) and it (input line trap) requests. Plus bugfixes regarding
49   the \t (tab) escape, nested escape sequences, and conditional requests.
50 * In mdoc(7), several bugs were fixed related to UTF-8 output of quoting
51   enclosures, delimiter handling, list indentation and horizontal and
52   vertical spacing, formatting of the Lk, %U, and %C macros, plus some
53   bugfixes related to the handling of syntax errors like badly nested
54   font blocks, stray Ta macros outside column lists, unterminated It Xo
55   blocks, and non-text children of Nm blocks.
56 * In tbl(7), the width of horizontal spans and the vertical spacing
57   around tables was corrected, and in man(7) files, a crash was fixed
58   that was triggered by some particular unclosed T{ macros.
59 * For mandoc developers, we now provide a tbl(3) library manual and
60   gmdiff, a very small, very simplistic groff-versus-mandoc output
61   comparison tool.
62 * Provide this NEWS file.
63
64Changes in version 1.12.1, released on March 23, 2012
65
66 * Significant work on apropos(1) and mandocdb(8). These tools are now
67   much more robust.  A whatis(1) implementation is now handled as an
68   apropos(1) mode.  These tools are also able to minimally handle
69   pre-formatted pages, that is, those already formatted by another
70   utility such as GNU troff.
71 * The man.cgi(7) script is also now available for wider testing.
72   It interfaces with mandocdb(8) manuals cached by catman(8).
73   HTML output is generated on-the-fly by libmandoc or internal
74   methods to convert pre-formatted pages.
75 * The mailing list archive for the discuss and tech lists are being
76   hosted by Gmane at gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.user and
77   gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.devel, respectively.
78
79Changes in version 1.12.0, released on October 8, 2011
80
81 * This version features a new, work-in-progress mandoc(1) output mode:
82   -Tman.  This mode allows a system maintainer to distribute man(7)
83   media for older systems that may not natively support mdoc(7), such
84   as old Solaris systems.
85 * The -Ofragment option was added to mandoc(1)'s -Thtml and -Txhtml modes.
86 * While adding features, an apropos(1) utility has been merged from the
87   mandoc-tools sandbox.  This interfaces with mandocdb(8) for semantic
88   search of manual content.  apropos(1) is different from the traditional
89   apropos primarily in allowing keyword search (such as for functions,
90   utilities, etc.) and regular expressions.  Note that the calling
91   syntax for apropos is likely to change as it settles down.
92 * In documentation news, the mdoc(7) and man(7) manuals have been
93   made considerably more readable by adding MACRO OVERVIEW sections, by
94   moving the gory details of the LANGUAGE SYNTAX to the roff(7) manual,
95   and by moving the very technical MACRO SYNTAX sections down to the
96   bottom of the page.
97 * Furthermore, for tbl(7), the -Tascii mode horizontal spacing of tables
98   was rewritten completely.  It is now compatible with groff(1), both
99   with and without frames and rulers.
100 * Nesting of indented blocks is now supported in man(7), and several
101   bugs were fixed regarding indentation and alignment.
102 * The page headers in mdoc(7) are now nicer for very long titles.
103
104Changes in version 1.11.7, released on September 2, 2011
105
106 * Added demandoc(1) utility for stripping away macros and escapes.
107   This replaces the historical deroff(1) utility.
108 * Also improved the mdoc(7) and man(7) manuals.
109
110Changes in version 1.11.6, released on August 16, 2011
111
112 * Handling of tr macro in roff(7) implemented.  This makes Perl
113   documentation much more readable.  Hyphenation is also now enabled in
114   man(7) format documents.  Many other general improvements have been
115   implemented.
116
117Changes in version 1.11.5, released on July 24, 2011
118
119 * Significant eqn(7) improvements.  mdocml can now parse arbitrary eqn
120   input (although few GNU extensions are accepted, nor is mixing
121   low-level roff with eqn).  See the eqn(7) manual for details.
122   For the time being, equations are rendered as simple in-line text.
123   The equation parser satisfies the language specified in the
124   Second Edition User's Guide:
125   http://www.kohala.com/start/troff/v7man/eqn/eqn2e.ps
126
127Changes in version 1.11.4, released on July 12, 2011
128
129 * Bug-fixes and clean-ups across all systems, especially in mandocdb(8)
130   and the man(7) parser.  This release was significantly assisted by
131   participants in OpenBSD's c2k11.  Thanks!
132
133Changes in version 1.11.3, released on May 26, 2011
134
135 * Introduce locale-encoding of output with the -Tlocale output option and
136   Unicode escaped-character input.  See mandoc(1) and mandoc_char(7),
137   respectively, for details.  This allows for non-ASCII characters (e.g.,
138   \[u5000]) to be rendered in the locale's encoding, if said environment
139   supports wide-character encoding (if it does not, -Tascii is used
140   instead).  Locale support can be turned off at compile time by removing
141   -DUSE_WCHAR in the Makefile, in which case -Tlocale is always a synonym
142   for -Tascii.
143 * Furthermore, multibyte-encoded documents, such as those in UTF-8, may
144   be on-the-fly recoded into mandoc(1) input by using the newly-added
145   preconv(1) utility.  Note: in the future, this feature may be
146   integrated into mandoc(1).
147
148Changes in version 1.11.2, released on May 12, 2011
149
150 * Corrected some installation issues in version 1.11.1.
151 * Further migration to libmandoc.
152 * Initial public release (this utility is very much under development)
153   of mandocdb(8).  This utility produces keyword databases of manual
154   content, which features semantic querying of manual content.
155
156Changes in version 1.11.1, released on April 4, 2011
157
158 * The earlier libroff, libmdoc, and libman soup have been merged into
159   a single library, libmandoc, which manages all aspects of parsing
160   real manuals, from line-handling to tbl(7) parsing.
161 * As usual, many general fixes and improvements have also occurred.
162   In particular, a great deal of redundancy and superfluous code has
163   been removed with the merging of the backend libraries.
164 * see also the changes in 1.10.10
165
166Changes in version 1.10.10, March 20, 2011, NOT released
167
168 * Initial eqn(7) functionality is in place.  For the time being,
169   this is limited to the recognition of equation blocks;
170   future version of mdocml will expand upon this framework.
171
172Changes in version 1.10.9, released on January 7, 2011
173
174 * Many back-end fixes have been implemented: argument handling (quoting),
175   man(7) improvements, error/warning classes, and many more.
176 * Initial tbl(7) functionality (see the "TS", "TE", and "T&" macros in
177   the roff(7) manual) has been merged from tbl.bsd.lv.  Output is still
178   minimal, especially for -Thtml and -Txhtml, but manages to at least
179   display data.  This means that mandoc(1) now has built-in support
180   for two troff preprocessors via libroff: soelim(1) and tbl(1).
181
182Changes in version 1.10.8, released on December 24, 2010
183
184 * Overhauled the -Thtml and -Txhtml output modes.  They now display
185   readable output in arbitrary browsers, including text-based ones like
186   lynx(1).  See HTML and XHTML manuals in the DOCUMENTATION section
187   for examples.  Attention: available style-sheet classes have been
188   considerably changed!  See the example.style.css file for details.
189   Lastly, libmdoc and libman have been cleaned up and reduced in size
190   and complexity.
191 * see also the changes in 1.10.7
192
193Changes in version 1.10.7, December 6, 2010, NOT released
194
195 Significant improvements merged from OpenBSD downstream, including:
196 * many new roff(7) components,
197 * in-line implementation of troff's soelim(1),
198 * broken-block handling,
199 * overhauled error classifications, and
200 * cleaned up handling of error conditions.
201
202Changes in version 1.10.6, released on September 27, 2010
203
204 * Calling conventions for mandoc(1) have changed: -W improved and -f
205   deprecated.
206 * Non-ASCII characters are also now uniformly discarded.
207 * Lots of documentation improvements.
208 * Many incremental fixes accomodating for groff's more interesting
209   productions.
210 * Lastly, pod2man(1) preambles are now fully accepted after some
211   considerable roff(7) and special character support.
212
213Changes in version 1.10.5, released on July 27, 2010
214
215 * Primarily a bug-fix and polish release, but including -Tpdf support
216   in mandoc(1) by way of "Summer of Code".  Highlights:
217 * fix "Sm" and "Bd" handling
218 * fix end-of-sentence handling for embedded sentences
219 * polish man(7) documentation
220 * document all mdoc(7) macros
221 * polish mandoc(1) -Tps output
222 * lots of internal clean-ups in character escapes
223 * un-break literal contexts in man(7) documents
224 * improve -Thtml output for -man
225 * add mandoc(1) -Tpdf support
226
227Changes in version 1.10.4, released on July 12, 2010
228
229 * Lots of features developed during both "Summer of Code" and the
230   OpenBSD c2k10 hackathon:
231 * minimal "ds" roff(7) symbols are supported
232 * beautified SYNOPSIS section output
233 * acceptance of scope-block breakage in mdoc(7)
234 * clarify error message status
235 * many minor bug-fixes and formatting issues resolved
236 * see also changes in 1.10.3
237
238Changes in version 1.10.3, June 29, 2010, NOT released
239
240 * variable font-width and paper-size support in mandoc(1) -Tps output
241 * "Bk" mdoc(7) support
242
243Changes in version 1.10.2, released on June 19, 2010
244
245 * Small release featuring text-decoration in -Tps output,
246   a few minor relaxations of errors, and some optimisations.
247
248Changes in version 1.10.1, released on June 7, 2010
249
250 * This primarily focusses on the "Bl" and "It" macros described in
251   mdoc(7).  Multi-line column support is now fully compatible with groff,
252   as are implicit list entries for columns.
253 * Removed manuals(7) in favour of http://manpages.bsd.lv.
254 * The way we handle the SYNOPSIS section (see the SYNOPSIS documentation
255   in MANUAL STRUCTURE) has also been considerably simplified compared
256   to groff's method.
257 * Furthermore, the -Owidth=width output option has been added to -Tascii,
258   see mandoc(1).
259 * Lastly, initial PostScript output has been added with the -Tps option
260   to mandoc(1).  It's brutally simple at the moment: fixed-font, with no
261   font decorations.
262
263Changes in version 1.10.0, released on May 29, 2010
264
265 * Release consisting of the results from the m2k10 hackathon and up-merge
266   from OpenBSD.  This requires a significant note of thanks to Ingo
267   Schwarze (OpenBSD) and Joerg Sonnenberger (NetBSD) for their hard work,
268   and again to Joerg for hosting m2k10.  Highlights (mostly cribbed from
269   Ingo's m2k10 report) follow in no particular order:
270 * a libroff preprocessor in front of libmdoc and libman stripping out
271   roff(7) instructions;
272 * end-of-sentence (EOS) detection in free-form and macro lines;
273 * correct handling of tab-separated columnar lists in mdoc(7);
274 * improved main calling routines to optionally use mmap(3) for better
275   performance;
276 * cleaned up exiting when invoked as -Tlint or over multiple files
277   with -fign-errors;
278 * error and warning message handling re-written to be unified for
279   libroff, libmdoc, and libman;
280 * handling of badly-nested explicit-scoped macros;
281 * improved free-form text parsing in libman and libmdoc;
282 * significant GNU troff compatibility improvements in -Tascii,
283   largely in terms of spacing;
284 * a regression framework for making sure the many fragilities of GNU
285   troff aren't trampled in subsequent work;
286 * support for -Tascii breaking at hyphens encountered in free-form text;
287 * and many more minor fixes and improvements
288
289Changes in version 1.9.25, released on May 13, 2010
290
291 * Fixed handling of "\*(Ba" escape.
292 * Backed out -fno-ign-chars (pointless complexity).
293 * Fixed erroneous breaking of literal lines.
294 * Fixed SYNOPSIS breaking lines before non-initial macros.
295 * Changed default section ordering.
296 * Most importantly, the framework for end-of-sentence double-spacing is
297   in place, now implemented for the "end-of-sentence, end-of-line" rule.
298 * This is a stable roll-back point before the mandoc hackathon in Rostock!
299
300Changes in version 1.9.24, released on May 9, 2010
301
302 * Rolled back break-at-hyphen.
303 * -DUGLY is now the default (no feature splits!).
304 * Free-form text is not de-chunked any more: lines are passed
305   whole-sale into the front-end, including whitespace.
306 * Added mailing lists.
307
308Changes in version 1.9.23, released on April 7, 2010
309
310 * mdocml has been linked to the OpenBSD build.
311 * This version incorporates many small changes, mostly from patches
312   by OpenBSD, allowing crufty manuals to slip by with warnings instead
313   of erroring-out.
314 * Some subtle semantic issues, such as punctuation scope, have also
315   been fixed.
316 * Lastly, some issues with -Thtml have been fixed, which prompted an
317   update to the online manual pages style layout.
318
319Changes in version 1.9.22, released on March 31, 2010
320
321 * Adjusted merge of the significant work by Ingo Schwarze
322   in getting "Xo" blocks (block full implicit, e.g., "It"
323   for non-columnar lists) to work properly.  This isn't
324   enabled by default: you must specify -DUGLY as a compiler
325   flag (see the Makefile for details).
326
327Changes in version 1.9.20, released on March 30, 2010
328
329 * More efforts to get roff instructions in man(7) documents under
330   control.  Note that roff instructions embedded in line-scoped,
331   next-line macros (e.g. "B") are not supported.
332 * Leading punctuation for mdoc(7) macros, such as "Fl ( ( a",
333   are now correctly handled.
334
335Changes in version 1.9.18, released on March 27, 2010
336
337 * Many fixes (largely pertaining to scope)
338   and improvements (e.g., handling of apostrophe-control macros,
339   which fixes the strange "BR" seen in some macro output)
340   to handling roff instructions in man(7) documents.
341
342Changes in version 1.9.17, released on March 25, 2010
343
344 * Accept perlpod(1) standard preamble.
345 * Also accept (and discard) "de", "dei", "am", "ami", and "ig"
346   roff macro blocks.
347
348Changes in version 1.9.16, released on March 22, 2010
349
350 * Inspired by patches and bug reports by Ingo Schwarze,
351   allowed man(7) to accept non-printing elements to be nested
352   within next-line scopes, such as "br" within "B" or "TH",
353   which is valid roff.
354 * Longsoon architecture also noted and Makefile cleaned up.
355
356Changes in version 1.9.15, released on February 18, 2010
357
358 * Moved to our new BSD.lv home.
359 * XHTML is now an acceptable output mode for mandoc(1);
360 * "Xr" made more compatible with groff;
361 * "Vt" fixed when invoked in SYNOPSIS;
362 * "\\" escape removed;
363 * end-of-line white-space detected for all lines;
364 * subtle bug fixed in list display for some modes;
365 * compatibility layer checked in for compilation in diverse
366   UNIX systems;
367 * and column lengths handled correctly.
368
369For older releases, see the ChangeLog files
370in http://mdocml.bsd.lv/snapshots/ .
371