A manual page reader, TkMan offers two major advantages over xman: hypertext links to other man pages (click on a word in the text which corresponds to a man page, and you jump there), and better navigation within long man pages with searches (both incremental and regular expression) and jumps to section headers. TkMan also offers some convenience features, like a user-configurable list of commonly-used man pages, a one-click printout, and integration of `whatis' and `apropos'. A companion C program translates the nroff version of a man page into Tk text widget input. TkMan adapts to your use of it, and you should kill it with the `Quit' button if you wish to save these adaptations. To answer some installation questions I have received, note that TkMan is based on TCL 6.7 and Tk 3.2, and it may not (probably will not) work with earlier versions. Set LIBDIR in the Makefile to where you usually keep your libraries (utils.tcl will be put here) and BINDIR to your binaries (tkman and bs2tk go here). After properly editing the Makefile, type `make install'. Thereafter type `tkman' to invoke TkMan (perhaps after a `rehash'). If TkMan is not filtering out some headers and footers, add a pattern for these to bs2tk.c. If you install a new version of TkMan after having used an old one and some things don't behave well, try removing the ~/.tkman file and running TkMan again. In particular, if you are moving from a pre-1.3 version of TkMan to 1.3 or later, you must delete the line "set man(print) ..." from ~/.tkman (assuming ~/.tkman exists) for printing to work correctly. Also, pre-1.3.4 Ultrix users should delete the line "set man(format) ..." from their ~/.tkman files. Paul Raines has specialized TkMan for use on SGIs. It is available by anonymous ftp from bohr.physics.upenn.edu (130.91.48.159) in ftp:/pub/tkman-1.3_SGI.tar.Z If you send me bug reports and suggestions for new features, include the versions of TkMan, Tcl, Tk, X, and UNIX and your machine and X window manager names. PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO DISTRIBUTE THIS SOFTWARE FREELY, BUT ONE MAY NOT CHARGE FOR IT OR INCLUDE IT WITH SOFTWARE WHICH IS SOLD. -------------------------------------------------- TkMan Q&A Q: What aren't the man page and icon installed? A: Dave Glowacki made the man page by cutting and pasting from the help page and it is always at least one release behind. Roar Smith submitted the icon (other submissions are welcome). I include the man page and icon in the distribution, but I don't support them in any way. Q: XXX man page doesn't format properly. A: bs2tk formats an nroff-formatted man page (always parsing the troff version would take much too long), reformatting it for Tk as follows: strips headers, footers; shows bullets, italics, boldface; parses section and subsection headers; parses SEE ALSO for links; relocates change bars; auto small caps In addition, the following systems are non-standard: Ultrix - upper and lower case section headers, odd and even page variations, interspersed tabs Solaris - bold italic If the man page isn't formatted properly, then (1) it was formatted with nonstandard macros, Reformat it with more-standard -man macros. If there are several man pages from the same distribution (e.g., InterViews) which has its name printed as a header or footer, you may alternatively add a pattern for it to bs2tk.c. (2) it has dates. Dates come in too many formats to identify quickly and efficiently. Reformat the man page without dates. Q: I installed a new version of TkMan, but a features advertised as fixed is still broken. A: You may be overwriting fixed code or variables with your ~/.tkman. Make sure you are following the "delete XXX from ~/.tkman" instructions. Q: TkMan takes forever to start up. A: TkMan first builds a database of all man page names and their corresponding directories, so the more man pages you have, the longer it takes. Turning off the switches for these directories has no effect, as you may turn them back on and then where would be be? If, in investigating your MANPATH, you discover paths you never look at, deleting these will speed up start up. Q: bs2tk.c won't compile. A: bs2tk.c is written is ANSI C. Is your compiler ANSI? Many old cc's aren't. Q: XXX is really busted--I sure of it! A: To repeat, if you send me bug reports and suggestions for new features, include the versions of TkMan, Tcl, Tk, X, and UNIX and your machine and X window manager names.