Hi, Carsten Kunze Heirloom wrote on Mon, Oct 03, 2016 at 12:31:02PM +0200:
> the problem in the document is the missing "-width" argument for .Bl. > From groff_mdoc: > > If a width is not specified for the tag list > type, every time ?.It? is invoked, an attempt > is made to determine an appropriate width. > If the first argument to ?.It? is a callable > macro, the default width for that macro will > be used; otherwise, the default width of > ?.No? is used. Carsten's confusion shows that such behaviour isn't very user-friendly: Even very experienced users, heck, even one of the main mdoc(7) language hackers like Carsten, doesn't expect it, and i never noticed that quirk either, not even after working on a major mdoc(7) implementation for more than half a decade. Even if we would want lists with non-uniform indentation, binding that to the default widths of the first macros renders the feature practically useless, and besides, i don't consider changing indentation within a list typographically sound. It will confuse manual readers about as much as manual writers. On top of that, neither Heirloom - which is closest to the original 4.4BSD implementation - nor mandoc(1) - which nowadays is the default mdoc(7) implementation of all operating systems using the mdoc(7) language by default for their mainuals - behave that way. So it's also a portability nuisance. So i have submitted a patch to remove the feature and simply use a reasonable, uniform default width for .Bl -tag without -width: 6n, the same default width as for -hang: https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?49272 Yours, Ingo
