Subj : MANWIDTH=64 man man-pages | col -bx
To   : Kai Richter
From : Maurice Kinal
Date : Fri May 30 2025 11:36 pm

Hey Kai!

> Within the first readable lines i could guess that you posted the
> result of the subject lines command.

That is correct except I added a few items to the commandline to redirect it into vim.  It gives the same result as it does straight to the terminal.

> Some of the command sequences messed up my old fido installation
> completly and makes the output useless for me.

I probably should have posted it the usual way ...

 <Esc>:read !MANWIDTH=64 man man-pages | col -bx

not that it would have mattered unless you're using vim as your fidonet editor.  From a commandline I would also pipe it through less.  The result is exactly the same.

I was toying with the idea of making something like this a method of posting differing documentation in fidonet echoareas but now that I see it I am not all that keen, especially given your result.

Note the first line of the resulting packed MSG reads, "<standard input>:128: warning: table wider than line length minus indentation".  I suspect that MANWIDTH=80 is probably a better choice.  I also suspect that the 64 column width was intended for smart devices with limited display real estate (columns x lines).  If so then I am even less interested in making something like this work given my utter distain for smart devices.

I apoplogize for not anticipating your fido installation's incompatibilty with modern gnu-linux tools.

Life is good,
Maurice

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.... Dreamas sind gewitene, wuniað þa wacran ond þæs woruld healdaþ.
    Joys are departed; weaker ones now live and hold the world.
--- GNU bash, version 5.2.37(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
 * Origin: Little Mikey's Brain - Ladysmith BC, Canada (1:153/7001)

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