[tex-live] texdoc doesn't find man pages

[Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard]

Werner LEMBERG scripsit (16.07.2008 21:39)
>> BTW, for some of the programs I also provide PDF files
>> from the .web files, enhanced by hyperref
>> in project latex-tds, module knuth:
>>   doc/knuth/etc/vftovp.pdf (VF, TFM)
>>   [...]
> 
> With other words: man pages should be last in the list of
> documentation locations 

I disagree.  The priority of man pages vs others kind of docs should be
configurable by the user.  I doubt most users are really more interested in a
program's documented source code than in it's man page.  Unfortunately, I'm
afraid it will be hard without completely reworking the way texdoc looks for
the doc (although we could try fiddling with the TEXDOCS variable).  Which
means it will most probably not be done before release, but it will be done
some day.

Anyway, this kind of collision already happens with eg luatex or etex: when a
user types 'texdoc luatex' does she want to see luatexref-t.pdf (LuaTeX's
reference manual) or luatex.pdf (the luatex package reference)?  The man page
vs pdf from .web thing is just another instance of teh same problem.

In the future, I think we should implement a notion of "category" (eg:
packages, man pages, program reference manual, program documented source code,
etc.) and allow to set priority for categories, or ask for something in a
specific category.  We should also create a 'menu' mode for texdoc: display a
list of all relevant doc for the query and ask the user to choose which one to
view by just pressing a key.

What already exists in texdoc is the 'list' mode, triggered by the -l or
--list options: just make a (somehow arbitrary) list of documentation found,
do not start a viewer, and the 'search' mode (-s|--search) which gives a
somewhat more comprehensive list and allows to use Lua-style regexes as
patterns (since texdoc is in texlua).

The 'view' mode is the default, and for the problem we're talking about it's
the worse, but I like it since it allows very fast access to the
documentation.  But since recently, you can choose the default mode in your
texdoc.cnf file, eg
mode = search
if you prefer search mode.

Manuel.