On 2010-11-02, Teemu Likonen <tliko...@iki.fi> wrote: > * 2010-11-02 18:43 (UTC), Tim Harig wrote: > >> The manual format contains all of the information on one page that can >> be easily searched whereas the info pages are split into sections that >> must be viewed individually. With the man pages, you can almost always >> find what you want with a quick search through the document. Info >> pages are much harder to use because you have to try and figure out >> which section the author decided to place the information that you are >> looking for. > > There is also the problem that people are less familiar with info > browsers than the usual "less" pager which is used by "man" command.
I thoroughly agree. The default info viewers are quite possibly the most counterintuitive programs I have ever encountered. I never did bother to learn how to use them. I instead installed the more intuitive pinfo program. > With the text terminal info browser called "info" as well as Emacs' info > browser you can use command "s" (stands for "search"). It prompts for a > regexp pattern to search in the whole document, including subsections > etc. Right, pinfo offers this as well; but, then you have to figure out where in the nodes that the search has taken you and how to navigate from that node to find additional information that you may need. I have, in general, come to think of info pages as a failed experiment and I know very few people who actually prefer them over the simpler man pages. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
