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#1 2017-09-07 22:21:03

lahwaacz
Wiki Admin
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2012-05-29
Posts: 748

The Arch manual pages repository

It has been more than a year since the man template for linking to online manual pages has been created on the Arch wiki. It was clear from the start that it is a big improvement over the previous unclickable references, but selecting the right website where we could link to was always problematic: most archives don't provide manuals from Arch packages, others have unsuitable URL scheme for addressing, others redirect to permalinks and require Javascript to show an info about where the manual comes from, and so on. Since its creation, the template linked to man7.org, which contains a handful of manuals taken directly from upstream, but that was not enough.

So to solve all these problems, we finally decided to create yet another the right repository of Arch manuals, which is currently hosted at http://jlk.fjfi.cvut.cz/arch/manpages/ (I'm slightly abusing my workstation at school, hopefully only temporarily). It contains all manuals from the official Arch packages, which would be installed under /usr/share/man/, listings with custom filters and orderings, links to other versions of the same manual and more - see for yourself!

But the website is by no means finished, because my holidays have ended and the infinite amount of free time vanished with it. At first sight the visual impression is a little bit crude, so if you know some CSS, please feel free to help us out! There are of course more things to do, for example those mentioned on the dev page. Also, if you see a reference to a man page on the wiki, which is not yet a link, please change it to the man template.

So, enjoy! I hope you like it.

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#2 2017-09-07 23:39:39

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,449
Website

Re: The Arch manual pages repository

So you're saying the wiki was previously lacking in man-power?  Way to man-up and fix it.  Just goes to show you, never send a boy to do a man's job.  And behind every great man is a wiki admin maintaining the server.

Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but give fish a man and all shall be enlightened.

No man is an island, but one man is an ilaenv.

A man that stands for nothing will fall for anything.

And let's not forget man's best friend ... oops.

I could go on with man puns for (man)-pages.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#3 2017-09-14 02:21:22

NoSuck
Member
Registered: 2015-03-04
Posts: 157
Website

Re: The Arch manual pages repository

Man, I think Trilby exhausted all the puns.  This is great news, though.  Thanks for the contribution!

Now that man pages are tracked in an SQL database, does this mean we're one step closer to having actual REFERENCED BY sections in Arch?  (See bottom of page.)

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#4 2017-09-14 06:47:25

lahwaacz
Wiki Admin
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2012-05-29
Posts: 748

Re: The Arch manual pages repository

Sure we are closer, but not quite there yet. Most importantly, references are not extracted from the document and we even need this atrocity to fix references in documents written in the old man(7) language. Also, the HTML version of each man page is created on demand and then cached, but for this feature we would need to have all man pages converted beforehand.

Also, I'd probably place it in the sidebar instead of the bottom of the page to separate it from the real content of the man page.

Last edited by lahwaacz (2017-09-14 06:53:34)

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#5 2017-09-15 23:43:25

NoSuck
Member
Registered: 2015-03-04
Posts: 157
Website

Re: The Arch manual pages repository

Sidebar placement seems like a good call.  I wonder if users would want such a feature backported to local man pages (or how feasible that might even be).

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#6 2017-09-16 17:25:57

NuSkool
Member
Registered: 2015-03-23
Posts: 141

Re: The Arch manual pages repository

Interesting!

I dabbled a bit with some of whats being discussed here, but on my local network for my personal use. This project sounds like what I would have considered the ultimate outcome if I would have stayed with it.

I eventually found this and have it bookmarked: https://manned.org/pkg/arch

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