Re: Formatting difference with 1.23.0.rc3 (ms)

[Christof Meerwald]

On Sun, Apr 09, 2023 at 02:11:17PM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> At 2023-04-08T19:38:49-0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > Yes.  Technically, this changed behavior is the result of a bug fix to
> > bring our rendering of ms documents more in line with AT&T troff ms, and
> > we don't ordinarily document bug fixes in the NEWS file.
> > 
> > https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?62688

Hmm, just been trying to look a bit into this.

What I found was
https://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2022-07/msg00000.html
https://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2022-07/msg00002.html and
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/UNIX_Programmers_Manual_Seventh_Edition_Vol_2_1983.pdf

Looking at page 158, in "8. Braces for Grouping", I see quite a bit of
white-space before

  "Rule: Braces can always be used to force EQN to treat something as
   a unit,"

which seems to correspond to 

.EQ
e sup {i omega t}
.EN
.sp
Rule:  Braces can
.ul
always
be used to force 
.UC EQN
to treat something as a unit,

in the source code. So the ".sp" clearly does affect spacing here
(after .EN).


On page 147 where we have

  "There is also a ·shorthand notation so
   in-line expressions"

it also appears that .PP following the .EN in the source code does
result in some additional whitespace (although it's less obvious):

.EQ I (3.1a)
x = f(y/2) + y/2
.EN
.PP
There is also a shorthand notation so
in-line expressions


Also on page 159, compare the spacing before "11. Summation, Integral,
Etc". There clearly was a lot more spacing there in the original
document.

.P1
(a sup 2 /b sub 2 ) sup half
.P2
.SC "Summation, Integral, Etc."

(where .P2 expands to .DE)


So the change really looks like a regression rather than a bug fix to
me.


> > But since you're the second person to have raised this issue to the
> > mailing list, it seems it might be worth adding a NEWS item about it.
> > So I'll see about that.
> 
> Here is my proposed text.
> 
> +o The s (ms) macro package now enables the formatter's "no-space mode"
> +  after ending displays (`DE`) and equations (`EQ`); this is to improve

"EN" instead of "EQ" (so it's consistent with "DE")?

(but I'd actually prefer to revert that change)


Christof

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