Re: [Nmh-workers] 1.7rc3: mhl(1) man page refers to old mhl.format name

[Mike Kupfer]

Ken Hornstein wrote:

> >In 1.7 RC3, the mhl(1) man page refers to mhl.format.  It looks like
> >that file is now called mhl.headers.
> 
> So ... that hasn't changed.  But how things work now is a bit confusing.
> 
> If you have a MIME message (and most are now), show(1) ends up
> invoking mhshow(1), which DOES use mhl(1) to display the headers, and
> in THAT instance mhl.headers is use (this is documented in mhshow(1)).
> I'm not sure we should change the mhl(1) man page; thoughts?

I think the mhl(1) man page should at least reflect this division of
labor.  Right now it says

  mhl ... is the default method of displaying text messages for nmh (it
  is the default showproc).

Neither "MIME" or "mhshow" appear anywhere in the page.

How about changing the first paragraph to something like

  mhl is an nmh command for filtering and/or displaying plain-text
  messages and the text parts of MIME-encoded messages.  See show(1) and
  mhshow(1) for details on how mhl is used.

I also suggest adding this sentence to the paragraph on mhl.format:

  Note that some programs, such as mhshow(1), may invoke mhl with a
  non-default format file.

I suppose this won't make much of a difference to the user who starts
with the show(1) man page.  But I've been using MH since 1984 (mostly
via MH-E) so I went straight to the mhl(1) man page.  After much
head-scratching, I ended up using strace to figure out why my changes to
mhl.format weren't working.

regards,
mike