Follow-up Comment #11, bug #67380 (group groff): [comment #10 comment #10:] > [comment #8 comment #8:] >> we could change "`fl" to go ahead and write the document preamble. > > Sure, but is there any real-world benefit to that? As the manual says, .fl > was designed for interactive nroffing, which already mostly doesn't work in > groff anyway.
It may have been **designed** for that, but its purpose appears to have morphed over the years. Earlier this month I noticed with interest [https://9p.io/sources/plan9/sys/src/cmd/troff/FIXES Plan 9 troff's "FIXES" file], which uncovers some of the changes made to DWB 3.4 _troff_, which seems otherwise lost to history. Apr 5, 1989: .fl and \X now cause output of size, font, hpos and vpos. this is necesary for postprocessors that intend to insert independent material, such as postscript. (A change in 1989 is easily old enough to have shown up in [https://github.com/n-t-roff/DWB3.3/ DWB 3.3], though I haven't checked its behavior in this respect.) That was a [https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?63074 painful shock of recognition for me]. We actually **don't** want to do what DWB (and maybe Plan 9) did, for the reasons agonizingly explored in [https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?63074 that ticket]. But this discovery is good, because I think it strengthens the case for a GNU _troff_ extension to the `fl` request that makes it argumentful, permitting selective "dirtying" (and, consequently, "output" as the foregoing quote puts it) of _grout_ commands that selectively reset (that is, "clean up") the type size, font position, drawing position, and maybe some other _groff_ extension stuff for the "context" (stroke and fill color, maybe? font height? font slant?). _______________________________________________________ Reply to this item at: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?67380> _______________________________________________ Message sent via Savannah https://savannah.gnu.org/
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