in reply to Re: Better perldoc on Windows
in thread Better perldoc on Windows

To my surprise, I'm learning from this discussion that win consoles can't display the formats necessary for manpages (bold, italics ,...), but this workaround of opening a browser-window doesn't seem to be much within CLI philosophy nor fast...

So what about installing lynx or w3m on windows to display html?

Cheers Rolf

PS: Sorry for my Win-ignorance, but I have to admit I'm never running into these kinds of problems .... one of the benefits of using emacs on each OS-plattform...

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Re^3: Better perldoc on Windows
by Jenda (Abbot) on Jun 06, 2010 at 20:25 UTC

    I'd much rather wait the halfsecond necessary to open the additional browser window that block my console and have to put up with the restrictive more or less or whatever pager you decide to use. I tend to display the manpages of a few modules at a time and switch between them at will.

    Jenda
    Enoch was right!
    Enjoy the last years of Rome.

[reply]
Re^3: Better perldoc on Windows
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jun 07, 2010 at 00:33 UTC

    I found this quote from a "how to write man pages" course instructive:

    If Unix was being invented now, man pages would probably be written using HTML, the Hypertext Mark-up Language for World Wide Web pages ...
    Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
    "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
    In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
[reply]
      agreed, thats why I think that text browsers are a good compromise.

      DESCRIPTION
       w3m  is  a  World  Wide Web (WWW) text based client. It has English and
       Japanese help files and an option menu and can  be  configured  to  use
       either language. It will display hypertext markup language (HTML) docu‐
       ments containing links to files residing on the local system,  as  well
       as  files  residing  on  remote systems. It can display HTML tables and
       frames.  In addition, it can be used as a "pager" in much the same man‐
       ner as "more" or "less".  Current versions of w3m run on Unix (Solaris,
       SunOS, HP-UX, Linux, FreeBSD, and EWS4800)  and  on  Microsoft  Windows
       9x/NT.

      And a "real" browser could be optionally used.

      Cheers Rolf

[reply]

        I used to use Lynx a lot when I had dial up--for its speed which came mostly from the fact that it didn't download images and flash crap etc. Then I discovered Opera that allowed me to defer image download until I chose to download them--individually or on-mass, and I didn't use Lynx much after that.

        These days, now I have broadband, speed is less of an issue. And with css and javascript being de rigour, it would be pretty much useless anyway for online browsing. For local html, download speed was never an issue, but the restrictions of fix-width only fonts, no css or javascript is. I really cannot see the benefits of the intermediate stage. My browser is always there, and I can quickly flip between several ModPods and my editor and one or more command lines quickly and easily.

        Trying to do everything through a single UI makes no sense to me. Like trying to control one of the modern breed of photo-realistic car or plane sims through a keyboard: possible, but crappy. Can you imagine trying to drive your real car by pounding on the uparrow to go faster or downarrow to hit the brakes?

        For all it's limitations, html is far superior--for users--to any of the other text viewers, simply because its ubiquity, and open competition, has meant browsers have developed rapidly to improve the UI.

        Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
        "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
        In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
[reply]

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