On Sunday, 1 December 2024 23:51:22 GMT G. Branden Robinson wrote: > I don't agree with this change, because it's not necessary. Formatter > requests are primitive things. Most requests don't also perform breaks. > Only a handful do. Those that do support the no-break control character > to _schedule_ a change to formatter state at the next break, when that > happens for some other reason.
I agree with Branden here, because my understanding of ".ne 5" is that if the current partial line would intrude into the needed space then a new page is started before the partial line is flushed (because ".ne" is not documented as one of the commands which automatically flushes a partial line - whereas ".bp" is so documented). To achieve what you want is simply a matter of adding a ".fl" before the ".ne" in your definition of the "p" macro. However, this would mean the "quet sed." will appear within the 5 line area, i.e. the same as if you used ".ne 4". Onf is correct, there is a difference in behaviour between "ne" and "bp", one is documented to flush any partial line (line break) and one is not. It seems wrong to make a change which would mean that any current document using ".ne" would have to change to "'ne" to retain the current behaviour, particularly when it is simply a case of adding a .fl before the .ne to achieve the behaviour onf prefers. Cheers Deri
