problems reading some manual pages in emacs (M-x Woman)

problems reading some manual pages in emacs (M-x Woman)

[Peter Smerdon]

Hello,
I like to use the `woman' package to read manual pages but noticed
recently that some new software I install is not being added to the
woman database. (if it even uses a database, I am not sure) 

For example, I installed `namp' and `most', neither show up in
Woman. The only way to read these fine manual pages is to use
woman-find-file.

I tried with both of theses versions:
GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.0) of
2007-11-06 on king, modified by Ubuntu

GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.0) of
2007-12-30 on osmium

Oh, while on the same subject, is there any way to bookmark a woman
manual page with the bookmark package?

C-x rm gives me:
bookmark-set: Buffer not visiting a file or directory

Thanks for reading..
-- 

Peter.

Re: problems reading some manual pages in emacs (M-x Woman)

[Tim X]

Peter Smerdon <psmerdon@magma.ca> writes:

> Hello,
> I like to use the `woman' package to read manual pages but noticed
> recently that some new software I install is not being added to the
> woman database. (if it even uses a database, I am not sure) 
>
> For example, I installed `namp' and `most', neither show up in
> Woman. The only way to read these fine manual pages is to use
> woman-find-file.
>
> I tried with both of theses versions:
> GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.0) of
> 2007-11-06 on king, modified by Ubuntu
>
> GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.0) of
> 2007-12-30 on osmium
>
> Oh, while on the same subject, is there any way to bookmark a woman
> manual page with the bookmark package?
>
> C-x rm gives me:
> bookmark-set: Buffer not visiting a file or directory
>

There are a couple of things I can think of you should check out.

Firstly, make sure you can get those pages with the normal 'man'
command. This will verify that things like your manpath settings are
correct and the whatis database has been re-buuilt since adding the new
man pages. 

If that all works fine, try starting woman with the 'universal'
arguement. This will force woman to re-build it s man page cache i.e.

C-u M-x woman

As for bookmarking the pages, not sure it will work because bookmarks
are associated with files and while the man page is in a file, to emacs,
its just a woman buffer.

Tim



-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: problems reading some manual pages in emacs (M-x Woman)

[Peter Smerdon]

Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> writes:

> If that all works fine, try starting woman with the 'universal'
> arguement. This will force woman to re-build it s man page cache i.e.
>
> C-u M-x woman

Thanks Tim, that was my problem.

> As for bookmarking the pages, not sure it will work because bookmarks
> are associated with files and while the man page is in a file, to emacs,
> its just a woman buffer.
>

darn, I am a slow learner :) so I frequent the tar, sed, grep and friends man
pages all the time, I will just have to manually call them up. Thanks
again for the help.

-- 

Peter.

Re: problems reading some manual pages in emacs (M-x Woman)

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 09.02.2008 um 00:02 schrieb Peter Smerdon:

> For example, I installed `namp' and `most', neither show up in
> Woman. The only way to read these fine manual pages is to use
> woman-find-file.

Do you know makewhatis? This creates the database files that are used  
by apropos or man -k.

--
Greetings

   Pete

When in doubt, use brute force.
				– Ken Thompson

Re: problems reading some manual pages in emacs (M-x Woman)

[Peter Smerdon]

Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE> writes:

> Am 09.02.2008 um 00:02 schrieb Peter Smerdon:
>
>> For example, I installed `namp' and `most', neither show up in
>> Woman. The only way to read these fine manual pages is to use
>> woman-find-file.
>
> Do you know makewhatis? This creates the database files that are used by
> apropos or man -k.

hmm, I see no ubuntu package for makewhatis and apt-file can't find it, makewhatis
gives me command not found even after sudo mandb -c

the wahtis command works from my terminal though.
-- 

Peter.

Re: problems reading some manual pages in emacs (M-x Woman)

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 10.02.2008 um 22:54 schrieb Peter Smerdon:

> hmm, I see no ubuntu package for makewhatis and apt-file can't find  
> it, makewhatis
> gives me command not found even after sudo mandb -c

Makewhatis is BSD, could be catman is 'more linux', which I am also  
used from Solaris as: catman -w.

--
Greetings

   Pete


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