Re: [Patch] reformat man buffer on the fly for man.el

[Darren Hoo <darren.hoo@gmail.com>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> I think the right fix for that is to display the buffer before it gets
> filled

hmm, that's an option, but my last attempt was to add new function for
newcomers instead of changing the way how man.el works. I suppose your
suggestion needs more changes and might break things for "old" people who
have customized their Man-notify-method.  
  
> so you don't need any new command like  "Man-update-manpage".  

I think I still need this. There's one thing I like Man more than
Info is that manpage can be re-formatted and it is easier for me to 
read large blocks of text with long lines which makes the text less 
cluttered.

When I lookup manpage occassionally I prefer reading some of it with
windows side by side. But when I find myself need to concentrate on one 
looked-up manpage, I would like to C-x 1 then reformat the Man buffer 
and read it from begin to end.

> It will also solve the problem that if generating
> the manpage takes a long time, it ends up popping up in your face
> unexpectedly (since you've lost patience in the mean time and moved on
> to something else).

Generating the manpage is so fast for me that this senario has never
occurred to me. Actually I find it unneccessary to call the command
asynchronouslly for me because I do not have to wait at all.


One question about the following code:

  (if (fboundp 'start-process)
     (start-process ...)
    (call-process ...))

Is it due to once in Emacs history when there is no `start-process' but
only `call-process', Can you fill me in?