[OS X TeX] $MANPATH (again??)

[Bruno Voisin]

Le 10 août 05 à 13:49, Steffen Hokland a écrit :

> I've looked through the archives of the list but couldn't find an  
> answer for this....
>
> I needed to convert a PNG file and wanted to use the convert  
> command line tool boundled with ImageMagick (GW-install - of  
> course...), however
> # man convert
> returned
> # No manual entry for convert
>
> My MANPATH is: /sw/share/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/local/teTeX/man:/ 
> usr/X11R6/man:/sw/lib/perl5/5.8.6/man
> which doens't contain /usr/local/man (I've done the quick'n dirty  
> fix man -M /usr/local/man convert).
>
> Have I messed up during my install of TeX (CLI use has been  
> selected), or should I try to manipulate the MANPATH variable  
> in .profile (which I'd rather not...)?

In case your OS X is Tiger, the MANPATH is set in a different way, in  
the file /usr/share/misc/man.conf, which associates a man file  
directory with a binary file directory. In your case,

     MANPATH_MAP    /usr/local/bin        /usr/local/share/man

The problem is that i-Installer installs man files inside /usr/local/ 
man, not /usr/local/share/man (apart from TeX itself).

For TeX, Gerben Wierda has recently modified the installation, such  
that the following line is (on Tiger) added to man.conf:

     MANPATH_MAP    /usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin- 
current    /usr/local/teTeX/man

However, there is no such modification for the other i-Packages. It's  
the GhostScript i-Package IIRC which adds /usr/local/bin to PATH;  
hence I imagine it's this same i-Package which should modify  
man.conf, if appropriate.

The problem is that I don't know whether several man directories can  
be associated with a single bin directory:

- If yes, then you could simply add the line

     MANPATH_MAP    /usr/local/bin        /usr/local/man

to man.conf.

- If not, then by editing the original MANPATH_MAP line to remove  
the /share in the man directory path, then you would risk to break  
things should you install afterwards software using /usr/local/share/ 
man/.

Another solution is to use ManOpen <http://www.clindberg.org/projects/ 
ManOpen.htm>. It's a GUI man page visualizer, which pretty-displays  
and pretty-prints them. It comes with a CLI version called "openman",  
which can be invoked from Terminal (simply replace man by openman)  
and opens the man page in ManOpen. ManOpen includes a preference  
allowing man path directories to be specified. I'm using it all the  
time instead of man.

Hope this helps,

Bruno Voisin--------------------- Info ---------------------
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