home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- This file describes recent user-visible changes in groff. Bug fixes
- are not described. There are more details in the man pages.
-
- VERSION 1.01
- ============
-
- The groff command now understands the gtroff `-a' and `-i' options.
-
- With the `m' and `n' scale indicators, the scale factor is rounded
- horizontally before being applied. This makes (almost) no difference
- for devices with `hor' equal to 1, but it makes groff with -Tascii or
- -Tlatin1 behave more like nroff in its treatment of these scale
- indicators. Accordingly tmac.tty now calls the `nroff' request so
- that the `n' condition will be true.
-
- The device-specific macros (tmac.ps, tmac.dvi, tmac.tty and tmac.X)
- have been made to work at least somewhat with -C. In particular the
- special characters defined by these macros now work with -C.
-
- groff -Tdvi -p will now pass pic the -x flag; this will enable filling
- of arrowheads and boxes, provided that your dvi driver supports the
- latest version of the tpic specials.
-
- Eqn
- ---
-
- There is a new `-N' option that tells eqn not to allow newlines in
- delimiters. This allows eqn to recover better from missing closing
- delimiters. The groff command will pass on a `-N' option to eqn.
-
- Grops
- -----
-
- You can now use psfig with grops. See the file ps/psfig.diff. I do
- not recommend using psfig for new documents.
-
- The command \X'ps: file F' is similar to \X'ps: exec ...' except that
- the PostScript code is read from the file F instead of being contained
- within the \X command. This was added to support psfig.
-
- Grodvi
- ------
-
- There are font files HB and HI corresponding to cmsssbx10 and cmssi10.
-
- Macros
- ------
-
- The groff -me macros now work with the -C option. As a result, they
- may also work with Unix nroff/troff.
-
- In -me, the $r and $R number registers now contain the line spacing as
- a percentage of the pointsize expressed in units (normally about 120).
- The previous definition was useless with low resolution devices such
- as X75 and X100.
-
- VERSION 1.00
- ============
-
- A -ms-like macro-package is now included.
-
- The name for the Icelandic lowercase eth character has been changed
- from \(-d to \(Sd.
-
- Troff
- -----
-
- There is a new request `nroff', which makes the `n' built-in condition
- true and the `t' built-in condition false; also a new request `troff'
- which undoes the effect of the `nroff' request. This is intended only
- for backward compatibility: it is usually better to test \n(.H or
- \n(.V or to use the `c' built-in condition.
-
- The \R escape sequence has been deleted. Use \E instead.
-
- There are `break' and `continue' requests for use with the `while'
- request.
-
- There is a request `hym' that can ensure that when the current
- adjustment mode is not `b' a line will not be hyphenated if it is no
- more than a given amount short, and a request `hys' that can ensure
- that when the current adjustment mode is `b' a line will not be
- hyphenated if it can be justified by adding no more than a given
- amount of extra space to each word space.
-
- There is a request `rj' similar to `ce' that right justifies lines.
-
- A warning of type `space' will be given when a call is made to an
- undefined request or macro with a name longer than two characters, and
- the first two characters of the name make a name that is defined.
- This is intended to find places where a space has been omitted been a
- request or macro and its argument. This type of warning is enabled by
- default.
-
- Pic
- ---
-
- A comma is permitted between the arguments to the `reset' command.
-
- For use with TeX, there is a new `-c' option that makes gpic treat
- lines beginning with `.' in a way that is more compatible with tpic
- (but ugly).
-
- Eqn
- ---
-
- It is no longer necessary to add `space 0' at the beginning of
- complicated equations inside pictures.
-
- `prime' is now treated as an ordinary character, as in Unix eqn. The
- previous behaviour of `prime' as an operator can now be obtained using
- `opprime'.
-
- Xditview
- --------
-
- There are two new devices X75-12 and X100-12 which are the same as X75
- and X100 except that they are optimized for documents that use mostly
- 12 point text.
-
- VERSION 0.6
- ===========
-
- The installation process has been refined to make it easy for you to
- share groff with someone who has the same type of machine as you but
- does not have a C++ compiler. See the end of the INSTALL file for
- details.
-
- There is a man page for the tfmtodit program which explains how to use
- your own fonts with groff -Tdvi.
-
- There is a man page for afmtodit which explains how to use your own
- PostScript fonts with groff -Tps.
-
- The \N escape sequence is now fully supported. It can now be used to
- access any character in a font by its output code, even if it doesn't
- have a groff name. This is made possible by a convention in the font
- files that a character name of `---' refers to an unnamed character.
- The drivers now all support the `N' command required for this. The font
- description files have been updated to include unnamed characters.
-
- The `x' command in font description files has been removed: instead
- any unknown commands are automatically made available to the drivers.
- If you constructed your own font files with an earlier version of
- tfmtodit or afmtodit, you must construct them again using the current
- version.
-
- Characters between 0200 and 0237 octal are no longer legal input
- characters. Note that these are not used in ISO 8859.
-
- A command called `grog' has been added, similar to the `doctype'
- command described in Kernighan and Pike.
-
- Groff
- -----
-
- The groff command has some new options: -V prints the pipeline
- instead of executing it; -P passes an argument to the postprocessor,
- -L passes an argument to the spooler.
-
- There is a C++ implementation of the groff command. This handles some
- things slightly better than the shell script. In particular, it can
- correctly handle arguments containing characters that have a special
- meaning to the shell; it can give an error message when child
- processes other than the last in the pipeline terminate abnormally;
- its exit status can take account of the exit statuses of all its child
- processes; it is a little more efficient; when geqn is used, it
- searches for the eqnchar file in the same way that font metric files
- are searched for, rather than expecting to find it in one particular
- directory.
-
- Gtroff
- ------
-
- There is font translation feature: For example, you can tell gtroff to
- use font `HR' whenever font `H' is requested with the line
- .ftr H HR
- This would be useful for a document that uses `H' to refer to
- Helvetica.
-
- There are some new number registers: `.kern' contains the current kern
- mode, `.lg' the current ligature mode, `.x' the major version number,
- `.y' the minor version number, `.ce' the number of lines to be
- centered in the current environment, `.trunc' the amount of vertical
- space truncated by the most recently sprung vertical position trap,
- `.ne' the amount of vertical space needed in the last `ne' request
- that caused a vertical position trap to be sprung.
-
- The `cf' request now behaves sensibly in a diversion. If used in a
- diversion, it will now arrange for the file to be copied to the output
- when the diversion is reread.
-
- There is a new request `trf' (transparent file) similar to `cf', but
- more like `\!'.
-
- There is a new escape sequence `\Y[xxx]', roughly equivalent to
- `\X'\*[xxx]'', except that the contents of string or macro xxx are not
- interpreted, and xxx may contain newlines. This requires an output
- format extension; the drivers have been modified to understand this.
- Grops has also been modified to cope with newlines in the arguments to
- \X commands; grops has a new \X command mdef, which is like def except
- that it has a first argument giving the number of definitions.
-
- There is a new warning category `escape' which warns about unknown
- escape sequences.
-
- The `fp' request now takes an optional third argument giving the external
- name of the font.
-
- The `\_' character is now automatically translated to `\(ul' as in troff.
-
- The environment variable `GROFF_HYPHEN' gives the name of the file
- containing the hyphenation patterns.
-
- There is a `\C'xxx'' escape sequence equivalent to `\[xxx]'.
-
- Characters ", ', ), ], *, \(dg are now initially transparent for the purposes
- of end of sentence recognition.
-
- There is an anti-recusion feature in the `char' request, so you can
- say `.char \(bu \s+2\(bu\s-2'.
-
- The limit on the number of font positions has been removed.
- Accordingly `\n[.fp]' never returns 0.
-
- The restriction on the number of numbered environments has been removed.
-
- There is a new escape sequence `\E' that makes it possible to
- guarantee that an escape sequence won't get interpreted in copy-mode.
- The `\R' escape sequence is accordingly now deprecated.
-
- Gpic
- ----
-
- Arguments of the form `X anything X' (in the `copy thru', `sh', `for',
- `if' and `define' constructs) can now be of the form `{ anything }'.
-
- If the `linethick' variable is negative (as it now is initially),
- lines will be drawn with a thickness proportional to the current point
- size.
-
- The `rand' function now takes no arguments and returns a number between
- 0 and 1. The old syntax is still supported.
-
- `^' can be used in expressions to indicate exponentiation.
-
- In the `for' construct the argument to the by clause can be prefixed
- by `*' to indicate that the increment is multiplicative.
-
- A bare expression may be used as an attribute. If the current
- direction is `dir', then an attribute `expr' is equivalent to
- `dir expr'
-
- There is a `sprintf' construct that allows numbers to be formatted and used
- wherever a quoted string can be used.
-
- The height of a text object without an explicit height attribute is
- the number of text strings associated with the object times the value
- of the `textht' variable.
-
- The maximum height and width of a picture is controlled by the
- `maxpswid' and `maxpsht' variables.
-
- Gtbl
- ----
-
- Gtbl can now handle gracefully the situation where the `ce' request
- has been applied to a table.
-
- Geqn
- ----
-
- The `ifdef' primitive has been generalized.
-
- A tilde accent can be put underneath a box using `utilde'. This
- defined using a general `uaccent' primitive.
-
- Grops
- -----
-
- There is a new PostScript font downloading scheme which handles font
- downloading for imported illustrations. Previously, the name of the
- file containing the font was given in the `x download' line in the
- groff font metric file. Now, there is a `download' file which says
- for each PostScript font name which file contains that font. Grops
- can also now handle inter-font dependencies, where one downloadable
- font depends on some other (possibly downloadable) font.
-
- The `T' font has been removed. The characters it used to provide are
- now provided by `char' definitions in tmac.ps. TSymbol.ps has also
- been removed, and the tweaks it provided are now provided by `char'
- definitions.
-