Arch Linux

FirstAirBender

Member

Registered: 2019-09-13

Posts: 15

Man -H option does not open the correct html doc

Using man-db and I tried opening a man page in the browser using the -H option, but this always opens a non-existing html document in the browser, which always fails.

Is this a bug, or am I not doing something I should?

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,200

Website

Re: Man -H option does not open the correct html doc

What browser, exactly?

If it’s a GUI, multi-tab browser, it may be because those programs are using the single-instance mode. So browser process exits and man deletes the file before the page is even opened. The situation is like a similar issue with using some editors with git commit.

Last edited by mpan (2021-04-27 07:16:59)

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Sometimes I seem a bit harsh — don’t get offended too easily!

FirstAirBender

Member

Registered: 2019-09-13

Posts: 15

Re: Man -H option does not open the correct html doc

Yea you're right. I use firefox, and there doesn't seem to be an option to tell it to not fork

Lone_Wolf

Member

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,910

Re: Man -H option does not open the correct html doc

I found one that requires some preparation : start firefox with a different profile then the one it's running .

create a new profile for firefox, I used manpage .

Create a wrapper script to start firefox with that profile , I used ~/ff

#! /bin/sh
/usr/bin/firefox -P manpage "$@"

Start firefox with your normal profile

execute

man --html=~/ff pacman

to verify if this works

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2021-04-29 10:52:02)

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Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)