seeking desktop app or GUI for reading 'man pages'

SaintDanBert · 12-21-2013, 01:53 PM

I read 'man pages' for fun (grin) and profit.

I know that I can open an x-terminal to some shell and launch the man-page reader:

Code:

     prompt$  man {whatever}

I know about xman, but it has been around since the 70's and looks like it is the original implementation.

Is there some recent desktop application or GUI such that I can read man pages without the need to open a terminal and shell?

camorri · 12-21-2013, 03:07 PM

Konqueror works for man pages.

man:///whateverpage should work.

jamison20000e · 12-21-2013, 03:52 PM

Have you tried

Code:

info

man,

less works well on some OSs, sorry I don't know of many other than Bash like man2html check: /usr/share/man/man1 (to /man8 here;), Gman, Emacs (+ a plugin if I remember corectly) also, online has a sea of spots... maybe, or? Best wishes and have fun.

sgosnell · 12-21-2013, 04:02 PM

The man pages are available on the web, and you can read them in any browser.

ondoho · 12-21-2013, 05:23 PM

xman, part of the good old X windows and probably already installed on your computer.
i don't know how to use it though, not as straightforward as typing "man someapp".

Habitual · 12-21-2013, 05:53 PM

Search my DorkBlog for 'yelp'

SaintDanBert · 12-21-2013, 06:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamison20000e

Have you tried

Code:

info

man,

The info sub-system presents more and different information than does the man sub-system. Quoting:

Code:

prompt$ info info

   The GNU Project distributes most of its on-line manuals in the "Info
format", which you read using an "Info reader".  You are probably using
an Info reader to read this now.

   There are two primary Info readers: `info', a stand-alone program
designed just to read Info files (*note What is Info?: (info-stnd)Top.), and the `info' package in GNU Emacs, a general-purpose editor.

I use both the command-line and the Emacs package. Launching Emacs to access info or man information is substantially similar to launching a shell in a terminal.

Cheers,
~~~ 0;-Dan

SaintDanBert · 12-21-2013, 07:43 PM

I found the following application TkMan. I has the following description:

TkMan is a super-charged reader which can access and search your man-pages in a variety of useful ways, and then display them in a nicely-formatted and very configurable fashion. Here is a sampling of what TkMan can do:
Any man-page mentioned in another page serves as a hyper-text link, giving man-page reading something of the flavor of HTML browsing.

The section headers of a page can be collapsed into an outline, making it easy to get a feel for the contents and organization of the page.

Hyper-linked listings of each category of man-page (such as User Commands or Games), as well as a listing of new and recently added pages.

A listing of often-accessed pages can be created, and "virtual volumes" of pages can be set up, if you'd like to have several scattered pages accessible as a new volume or category.

Integration with the apropos and whatis commands.

There is an entry field in the main window which allows you to enter text-strings or regular expressions and search for them in the displayed page.

If you have the Glimpse indexing and search facility installed, TkMan can use its services for powerful searches of man-page text.

If you are either bored or in the mood for a little aleatory learning, there is a menu-button which will cause a random man-page to be displayed.

When starting up, TkMan reports on any faults it finds in your man-page and man-path set-up.

Configurable display colors and fonts.

This might just do the trick.

~~~ 0;-Dan

jamison20000e · 12-21-2013, 09:05 PM

I will have to check it out looks cool for off line man use... Arc views them fairly well, nothing like the web or TkMan (from the looks of it.)

ondoho · 12-22-2013, 06:46 AM

searching for tkman, i just found gtkman.
but, after 5min, i could not get it to display anything on my system.

SaintDanBert · 12-22-2013, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ondoho

searching for tkman, i just found gtkman.
but, after 5min, i could not get it to display anything on my system.

I found and installed gtkman v0.6. As 'ondoho' said, "... could not get ... display ..." This is true if you try something like:

Code:

     prompt$ gtkman gtkman

It turns out that while traditional man will search all sections for the command line item, gtkman seems to require an explicit section option input.

Code:

     prompt$ gtkman 1 gtkman   # sect-1 has basic user commands

I got this far after a very few minutes of playing. I'll (blush, grin) read the python code and see if I can discover missing configuration options or similar.

Cheers,
~~~ 0;-Dan

jamison20000e · 12-22-2013, 03:17 PM

Yes, a search on Google for: tkman site:ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/ucb/people/ got nill but did find it at SF: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tkman/; so far I'm stuck on

Code:

$ tkman man
/usr/local/bin/tkman: 3: exec: /usr/local/bin/wish8.4: not found

and will have to play with it later...

SaintDanBert · 12-23-2013, 10:29 AM

I wrote to the gtkman author, George Vlahavas and got a super-prompt reply (especially for this time of year). He suggested that I try a revised edition gtkman v0.7.

The new edition works as expected:

Code:

     prompt$ gtkman {keyword}

properly searches all man-page sections and displays the first {keyword} content it finds. This is similar to the behavior of traditional man.

As a programmer, it is easy to see things that might be different. REMEMBER -- It is still a zero-dot-something edition. However, gtkman will become a permanent addition to my tool belt.

Joyeaux Noel,
~~~ *<:-}( )( )// Dan