-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On Sun, 2023-12-17 at 14:28 -0600, G. Branden Robinson wrote: > Hi Wael, > > Bad news first. > > At 2023-12-12T17:30:15+0200, Wael Karram wrote: > > I'm trying to get a split header much like say in a classic mail card > > where you'd have some details on the left and parallel to them other > > details on the right - this is using the ms macro set. > > > > In the past I used something like this: > > > .mk > > .DS L > > Left-aligned side > > .DE > > .rt > > .DS R > > Right-aligned side > > .DE > > > Now, it doesn't work anymore after a recent groff update. > > "Something like", but not exactly, I have to conclude: the foregoing > example does not work as you seem to desire on any of groff 1.22.3, > 1.22.4, or 1.23.0, which covers about nine years. > > > What ends up happening is that indeed the text is aligned as intended > > - but on different consecutive lines. > > Given the above example, the left- and right- aligned material never > occupies the same output line for me. There is a change in the way > things align from 1.22.4 to 1.23.0, but it's simply different, not > necessarily better or worse. > > By using low-level *roff requests to alter the drawing position, I think > you may be changing the state of the formatter out from where the ms > macro package expects it to be. > > I had a look with Heirloom Doctools troff and ms, but quickly gave up > because that ms doesn't support right-aligned displays at all. > > (For what it's worth, it doesn't overprint the two displays either, so > once again they're on different lines.) > > > Omitting the DEs makes it work as intended, but gives a warning about > > unterminated DSes. > > The warning sounds valid to me. This seems like an accidental success > and not something that will be generally useful. > > > Is there any other way to achieve what I am looking for? I have tried > > searching to no avail. > > Now for the good news. > > The `tl` request was made for this sort of thing. > > $ cat ATTIC/wael2.ms > .LP > .tl 'Left-aligned side''Right-aligned side' > $ ~/groff-1.22.3/bin/nroff -ms -Tascii ATTIC/wael2.ms|cat -n|head > 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5 > 6 > 7 Left-aligned side Right-aligned side > 8 > 9 > 10 > $ /usr/bin/nroff -ms -Tascii ATTIC/wael2.ms|cat -n|head # groff 1.22.4 > 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5 > 6 > 7 Left-aligned side Right-aligned side > 8 > 9 > 10 > $ ~/groff-stable/bin/nroff -ms -Tascii ATTIC/wael2.ms|cat -n|head # 1.23.0 > 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5 > 6 > 7 Left-aligned side Right-aligned side > 8 > 9 > 10 > $ nroff -ms -Tascii ATTIC/wael2.ms|cat -n|head # groff Git HEAD > 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5 > 6 > 7 Left-aligned side Right-aligned side > 8 > 9 > 10 > > So that might work better for you. Remember to call a paragraphing or > sectioning macro to start your ms document, as I did with `LP`. > > Yes, `tl` is a low-level request too, but not as disruptive to the state > of the formatter. It writes an output line and gets out of the way. > > (The default line length in ms(7) did change in groff 1.23.0. This is > documented.[1]) > > Regards, > Branden > > [1] NEWS: > > o The s (ms) macro package now uses a default line length of 6.5 inches > by default, resulting in 1-inch left and right margins. When the > "papersize.tmac" package is used by employing the "-d paper" groff(1) > option on typesetting devices, the default page offset and line length > are adjusted to maintain these margins. Hello, Thanks a lot for all the advice. I have managed to solve it all the same by keeping the same structure but floating the displays by surrounding them with floating keeps. I am not sure why it even works, but it does.
- -- Kind Regards, Wael Karram. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEf7UaZwwbhSDHrd14OzVgOMyxCAgFAmV/7/kACgkQOzVgOMyx CAhM2A/9FBAlXr/SDEG6phhSUh+L1IMmlicY0YpDkELoiYThWDNqyV9KjZJjyb2u sLItgKgLGPfhXZCJX/aOrBj768ugL0nc8eha8U7IJu2qcfah4Lhp0jFxdgTbNWc4 ROY/1MQ+FO7OimdzOoTOyvcfV0FStbOX2ioXwHF/3Lm1rX6Wd9Em8wRGwX7k+hay janruU4mHEFsoG6hX+g2HuPrIHU8mlqdWkqodjrx5xn3oy5WNAwVE3HsbtBEHCE6 k8/QnQP2ztsQLK6r05wAWrU2POnWJeCT0CRQdLTjYEO4cYvO33pXS01YsiBUVMwG PVfeUB/+Jq77pdBI2firH9nkOJIQEM4lXv8aloljVtbhPeIbjhaI+HAYxSTOmdqe ha2m6x4tOxQm1cV3dX0Mc78d6m+5AmnoPN8n9C51w/ZJcpTQJJltKnJnP/SHp5kX /Hjo0TmgGCgzq4TWZVw5/xWkst8SpfeMSNB2QjVoCJc+pOhcQatMzHdkAgvuDJvL 63t3+h90HuowSZV2E38q1RSW2GKxHuEmu2glWP6PZg+0MOq1ZtXIkq2UEgGm+zYo 2q21IX1X/+FpauAwxuoW2oHqAAtnfo2Fb23BQUqlYLDrsNOUszXViuq9kDjAql3I Np7v/ltmZOqOSmcIRw9QIj7s49wIEMrJWuSiTjrtcRPNA/+JWdo= =4pPi -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
