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This file lists the most important changes in the mdocml.bsd.lv distribution.

Changes in version 1.12.2, released on Oktober 5, 2013

 * The mdoc(7) to man(7) converter, to be called as mandoc -Tman,
   is now fully functional.
 * The mandoc(1) utility now supports the -Ios (default operating system)
   input option, and the -Tutf8 output mode now actually works.
 * The mandocdb(8) utility no longer truncates existing databases when
   starting to build new ones, but only replaces them when the build
   actually succeeds.
 * The man(7) parser now supports the PD macro (paragraph distance),
   and (for GNU man-ext compatibility only) EX (example block) and EE
   (example end).  Plus several bugfixes regarding indentation, line
   breaks, and vertical spacing, and regarding RS following TP.
 * The roff(7) parser now supports the \f(BI (bold+italic) font escape,
   the \z (zero cursor advance) escape and the cc (change control
   character) and it (input line trap) requests. Plus bugfixes regarding
   the \t (tab) escape, nested escape sequences, and conditional requests.
 * In mdoc(7), several bugs were fixed related to UTF-8 output of quoting
   enclosures, delimiter handling, list indentation and horizontal and
   vertical spacing, formatting of the Lk, %U, and %C macros, plus some
   bugfixes related to the handling of syntax errors like badly nested
   font blocks, stray Ta macros outside column lists, unterminated It Xo
   blocks, and non-text children of Nm blocks.
 * In tbl(7), the width of horizontal spans and the vertical spacing
   around tables was corrected, and in man(7) files, a crash was fixed
   that was triggered by some particular unclosed T{ macros.
 * For mandoc developers, we now provide a tbl(3) library manual and
   gmdiff, a very small, very simplistic groff-versus-mandoc output
   comparison tool.
 * Provide this NEWS file.

Changes in version 1.12.1, released on March 23, 2012

 * Significant work on apropos(1) and mandocdb(8). These tools are now
   much more robust.  A whatis(1) implementation is now handled as an
   apropos(1) mode.  These tools are also able to minimally handle
   pre-formatted pages, that is, those already formatted by another
   utility such as GNU troff.
 * The man.cgi(7) script is also now available for wider testing.
   It interfaces with mandocdb(8) manuals cached by catman(8).
   HTML output is generated on-the-fly by libmandoc or internal
   methods to convert pre-formatted pages.
 * The mailing list archive for the discuss and tech lists are being
   hosted by Gmane at gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.user and
   gmane.comp.tools.mdocml.devel, respectively.

Changes in version 1.12.0, released on October 8, 2011

 * This version features a new, work-in-progress mandoc(1) output mode:
   -Tman.  This mode allows a system maintainer to distribute man(7)
   media for older systems that may not natively support mdoc(7), such
   as old Solaris systems.
 * The -Ofragment option was added to mandoc(1)'s -Thtml and -Txhtml modes.
 * While adding features, an apropos(1) utility has been merged from the
   mandoc-tools sandbox.  This interfaces with mandocdb(8) for semantic
   search of manual content.  apropos(1) is different from the traditional
   apropos primarily in allowing keyword search (such as for functions,
   utilities, etc.) and regular expressions.  Note that the calling
   syntax for apropos is likely to change as it settles down.
 * In documentation news, the mdoc(7) and man(7) manuals have been
   made considerably more readable by adding MACRO OVERVIEW sections, by
   moving the gory details of the LANGUAGE SYNTAX to the roff(7) manual,
   and by moving the very technical MACRO SYNTAX sections down to the
   bottom of the page.
 * Furthermore, for tbl(7), the -Tascii mode horizontal spacing of tables
   was rewritten completely.  It is now compatible with groff(1), both
   with and without frames and rulers.
 * Nesting of indented blocks is now supported in man(7), and several
   bugs were fixed regarding indentation and alignment.
 * The page headers in mdoc(7) are now nicer for very long titles.

Changes in version 1.11.7, released on September 2, 2011

 * Added demandoc(1) utility for stripping away macros and escapes.
   This replaces the historical deroff(1) utility.
 * Also improved the mdoc(7) and man(7) manuals.

Changes in version 1.11.6, released on August 16, 2011

 * Handling of tr macro in roff(7) implemented.  This makes Perl
   documentation much more readable.  Hyphenation is also now enabled in
   man(7) format documents.  Many other general improvements have been
   implemented.

Changes in version 1.11.5, released on July 24, 2011

 * Significant eqn(7) improvements.  mdocml can now parse arbitrary eqn
   input (although few GNU extensions are accepted, nor is mixing
   low-level roff with eqn).  See the eqn(7) manual for details.
   For the time being, equations are rendered as simple in-line text.
   The equation parser satisfies the language specified in the
   Second Edition User's Guide:
   http://www.kohala.com/start/troff/v7man/eqn/eqn2e.ps

Changes in version 1.11.4, released on July 12, 2011

 * Bug-fixes and clean-ups across all systems, especially in mandocdb(8)
   and the man(7) parser.  This release was significantly assisted by
   participants in OpenBSD's c2k11.  Thanks!

Changes in version 1.11.3, released on May 26, 2011

 * Introduce locale-encoding of output with the -Tlocale output option and
   Unicode escaped-character input.  See mandoc(1) and mandoc_char(7),
   respectively, for details.  This allows for non-ASCII characters (e.g.,
   \[u5000]) to be rendered in the locale's encoding, if said environment
   supports wide-character encoding (if it does not, -Tascii is used
   instead).  Locale support can be turned off at compile time by removing
   -DUSE_WCHAR in the Makefile, in which case -Tlocale is always a synonym
   for -Tascii.
 * Furthermore, multibyte-encoded documents, such as those in UTF-8, may
   be on-the-fly recoded into mandoc(1) input by using the newly-added
   preconv(1) utility.  Note: in the future, this feature may be
   integrated into mandoc(1).

Changes in version 1.11.2, released on May 12, 2011

 * Corrected some installation issues in version 1.11.1.
 * Further migration to libmandoc.
 * Initial public release (this utility is very much under development)
   of mandocdb(8).  This utility produces keyword databases of manual
   content, which features semantic querying of manual content.

Changes in version 1.11.1, released on April 4, 2011

 * The earlier libroff, libmdoc, and libman soup have been merged into
   a single library, libmandoc, which manages all aspects of parsing
   real manuals, from line-handling to tbl(7) parsing.
 * As usual, many general fixes and improvements have also occurred.
   In particular, a great deal of redundancy and superfluous code has
   been removed with the merging of the backend libraries.
 * see also the changes in 1.10.10

Changes in version 1.10.10, March 20, 2011, NOT released

 * Initial eqn(7) functionality is in place.  For the time being,
   this is limited to the recognition of equation blocks;
   future version of mdocml will expand upon this framework.

Changes in version 1.10.9, released on January 7, 2011

 * Many back-end fixes have been implemented: argument handling (quoting),
   man(7) improvements, error/warning classes, and many more.
 * Initial tbl(7) functionality (see the "TS", "TE", and "T&" macros in
   the roff(7) manual) has been merged from tbl.bsd.lv.  Output is still
   minimal, especially for -Thtml and -Txhtml, but manages to at least
   display data.  This means that mandoc(1) now has built-in support
   for two troff preprocessors via libroff: soelim(1) and tbl(1).

Changes in version 1.10.8, released on December 24, 2010

 * Overhauled the -Thtml and -Txhtml output modes.  They now display
   readable output in arbitrary browsers, including text-based ones like
   lynx(1).  See HTML and XHTML manuals in the DOCUMENTATION section
   for examples.  Attention: available style-sheet classes have been
   considerably changed!  See the example.style.css file for details.
   Lastly, libmdoc and libman have been cleaned up and reduced in size
   and complexity.
 * see also the changes in 1.10.7

Changes in version 1.10.7, December 6, 2010, NOT released

 Significant improvements merged from OpenBSD downstream, including:
 * many new roff(7) components,
 * in-line implementation of troff's soelim(1),
 * broken-block handling,
 * overhauled error classifications, and
 * cleaned up handling of error conditions.

Changes in version 1.10.6, released on September 27, 2010

 * Calling conventions for mandoc(1) have changed: -W improved and -f
   deprecated.
 * Non-ASCII characters are also now uniformly discarded.
 * Lots of documentation improvements.
 * Many incremental fixes accomodating for groff's more interesting
   productions.
 * Lastly, pod2man(1) preambles are now fully accepted after some
   considerable roff(7) and special character support.

Changes in version 1.10.5, released on July 27, 2010

 * Primarily a bug-fix and polish release, but including -Tpdf support
   in mandoc(1) by way of "Summer of Code".  Highlights:
 * fix "Sm" and "Bd" handling
 * fix end-of-sentence handling for embedded sentences
 * polish man(7) documentation
 * document all mdoc(7) macros
 * polish mandoc(1) -Tps output
 * lots of internal clean-ups in character escapes
 * un-break literal contexts in man(7) documents
 * improve -Thtml output for -man
 * add mandoc(1) -Tpdf support

Changes in version 1.10.4, released on July 12, 2010

 * Lots of features developed during both "Summer of Code" and the
   OpenBSD c2k10 hackathon:
 * minimal "ds" roff(7) symbols are supported
 * beautified SYNOPSIS section output
 * acceptance of scope-block breakage in mdoc(7)
 * clarify error message status
 * many minor bug-fixes and formatting issues resolved
 * see also changes in 1.10.3

Changes in version 1.10.3, June 29, 2010, NOT released

 * variable font-width and paper-size support in mandoc(1) -Tps output
 * "Bk" mdoc(7) support

Changes in version 1.10.2, released on June 19, 2010

 * Small release featuring text-decoration in -Tps output,
   a few minor relaxations of errors, and some optimisations.

Changes in version 1.10.1, released on June 7, 2010

 * This primarily focusses on the "Bl" and "It" macros described in
   mdoc(7).  Multi-line column support is now fully compatible with groff,
   as are implicit list entries for columns.
 * Removed manuals(7) in favour of http://manpages.bsd.lv.
 * The way we handle the SYNOPSIS section (see the SYNOPSIS documentation
   in MANUAL STRUCTURE) has also been considerably simplified compared
   to groff's method.
 * Furthermore, the -Owidth=width output option has been added to -Tascii,
   see mandoc(1).
 * Lastly, initial PostScript output has been added with the -Tps option
   to mandoc(1).  It's brutally simple at the moment: fixed-font, with no
   font decorations.

Changes in version 1.10.0, released on May 29, 2010

 * Release consisting of the results from the m2k10 hackathon and up-merge
   from OpenBSD.  This requires a significant note of thanks to Ingo
   Schwarze (OpenBSD) and Joerg Sonnenberger (NetBSD) for their hard work,
   and again to Joerg for hosting m2k10.  Highlights (mostly cribbed from
   Ingo's m2k10 report) follow in no particular order:
 * a libroff preprocessor in front of libmdoc and libman stripping out
   roff(7) instructions;
 * end-of-sentence (EOS) detection in free-form and macro lines;
 * correct handling of tab-separated columnar lists in mdoc(7);
 * improved main calling routines to optionally use mmap(3) for better
   performance;
 * cleaned up exiting when invoked as -Tlint or over multiple files
   with -fign-errors;
 * error and warning message handling re-written to be unified for
   libroff, libmdoc, and libman;
 * handling of badly-nested explicit-scoped macros;
 * improved free-form text parsing in libman and libmdoc;
 * significant GNU troff compatibility improvements in -Tascii,
   largely in terms of spacing;
 * a regression framework for making sure the many fragilities of GNU
   troff aren't trampled in subsequent work;
 * support for -Tascii breaking at hyphens encountered in free-form text;
 * and many more minor fixes and improvements

Changes in version 1.9.25, released on May 13, 2010

 * Fixed handling of "\*(Ba" escape.
 * Backed out -fno-ign-chars (pointless complexity).
 * Fixed erroneous breaking of literal lines.
 * Fixed SYNOPSIS breaking lines before non-initial macros.
 * Changed default section ordering.
 * Most importantly, the framework for end-of-sentence double-spacing is
   in place, now implemented for the "end-of-sentence, end-of-line" rule.
 * This is a stable roll-back point before the mandoc hackathon in Rostock!

Changes in version 1.9.24, released on May 9, 2010

 * Rolled back break-at-hyphen.
 * -DUGLY is now the default (no feature splits!).
 * Free-form text is not de-chunked any more: lines are passed
   whole-sale into the front-end, including whitespace.
 * Added mailing lists.

Changes in version 1.9.23, released on April 7, 2010

 * mdocml has been linked to the OpenBSD build.
 * This version incorporates many small changes, mostly from patches
   by OpenBSD, allowing crufty manuals to slip by with warnings instead
   of erroring-out.
 * Some subtle semantic issues, such as punctuation scope, have also
   been fixed.
 * Lastly, some issues with -Thtml have been fixed, which prompted an
   update to the online manual pages style layout.

Changes in version 1.9.22, released on March 31, 2010

 * Adjusted merge of the significant work by Ingo Schwarze
   in getting "Xo" blocks (block full implicit, e.g., "It"
   for non-columnar lists) to work properly.  This isn't
   enabled by default: you must specify -DUGLY as a compiler
   flag (see the Makefile for details).

Changes in version 1.9.20, released on March 30, 2010

 * More efforts to get roff instructions in man(7) documents under
   control.  Note that roff instructions embedded in line-scoped,
   next-line macros (e.g. "B") are not supported.
 * Leading punctuation for mdoc(7) macros, such as "Fl ( ( a",
   are now correctly handled.

Changes in version 1.9.18, released on March 27, 2010

 * Many fixes (largely pertaining to scope)
   and improvements (e.g., handling of apostrophe-control macros,
   which fixes the strange "BR" seen in some macro output)
   to handling roff instructions in man(7) documents.

Changes in version 1.9.17, released on March 25, 2010

 * Accept perlpod(1) standard preamble.
 * Also accept (and discard) "de", "dei", "am", "ami", and "ig"
   roff macro blocks.

Changes in version 1.9.16, released on March 22, 2010

 * Inspired by patches and bug reports by Ingo Schwarze,
   allowed man(7) to accept non-printing elements to be nested
   within next-line scopes, such as "br" within "B" or "TH",
   which is valid roff.
 * Longsoon architecture also noted and Makefile cleaned up.

Changes in version 1.9.15, released on February 18, 2010

 * Moved to our new BSD.lv home.
 * XHTML is now an acceptable output mode for mandoc(1);
 * "Xr" made more compatible with groff;
 * "Vt" fixed when invoked in SYNOPSIS;
 * "\\" escape removed;
 * end-of-line white-space detected for all lines;
 * subtle bug fixed in list display for some modes;
 * compatibility layer checked in for compilation in diverse
   UNIX systems;
 * and column lengths handled correctly.

For older releases, see the ChangeLog files
in http://mdocml.bsd.lv/snapshots/ .