--- section: 32 x-masysma-name: d5man2 title: Ma_Sys.ma D5Man 2 date: 2019/12/06 13:16:32 lang: en-US author: ["Linux-Fan, Ma_Sys.ma (Ma_Sys.ma@web.de)"] keywords: ["d5man", "d5man2", "d5manapi", "d5mantui"] x-masysma-version: 2.1.0 x-masysma-repository: https://www.github.com/m7a/bo-d5man2 x-masysma-website: https://masysma.net/32/d5man2.xhtml x-masysma-owned: 1 x-masysma-copyright: (c) 2019--2024 Ma_Sys.ma . --- Overview ======== Ma_Sys.ma D5Man 2 is a set of programs and auxiliary resources intended to build a locally run knowledge base. It consists of the following individual components: `d5mantui` : _Terminal User Interface_ as an interactive means to query for D5Man pages. See `d5mantui` for details. d5manexport : Multiple programs to export a special instance of pandoc's Markdown by invoking the `pandoc` utility (not part of D5Man). Two export scripts are supplied: `d5manexportpdf` exports a single page to a printable PDF document; `d5manexporthtml` exports a whole directory structure of D5Man pages to a specified directory. Auxiliary Resources : The package provides a syntax file `markdown.vim` as a replacement for VIM's default Markdown style. This style makes sections more visible and is loosely inspired by the style used in D5Man Legacy. This version “D5Man 2” replaces D5Man Legacy which was an attempt to achieve a similar outcome but in a much more sophisticated manner leading to excessive complexity. D5Man Structure and Concepts ============================ D5Man is centered around the concept of _D5Man pages_: A D5Man page is a text file written in a subset of pandoc's Markdown together with a minimum amount of metadata in YAML format and with optional attachment files. The details of the format are described under _D5Man Format 2_. ## Filesystem Structure Two ways of organizing D5Man pages on file systems are recommended: 1. Document-Root: A directory structure which consists only of D5Man pages (or other data processable by the D5Man API Server). On the top-level there is one directory per _section_ and the respective sections contain one ore multiple D5Man documents each. 2. Program-Root: A directory structure which consists of programs' repositories. Here, pages are represented by the files named `README.md` in the subdirectories of the root. A third option is _detached_, that is a directory unknown to the D5Man programs which contains one or more pages. Such files are not found by the D5Man API Server but can still be converted to PDF. ### Example for a Document-Root Structure: Ma_Sys.ma Website /rr | +-- 31/ | | | +-- web_about_att/ | | | | | +-- ... | | | +-- web_news_att/ | | | | | +-- ... | | | +-- ... | | | +-- web_about.md | | | +-- web_news.md | | | +-- ... | +-- ... ### Example for a Program-Root Structure: Ma_Sys.ma Repositories /rr | +-- bo-adler32/ | | | +-- README.md | | | +-- ... | +-- bo-big/ | | | +-- big4_att/ | | | | | +-- screenshot3.png | | | +-- README.md | | | +-- ... | +-- ... ## Concept D5Man is designed as a sort of personal Wiki that can have a published part. To achieve the separation between published and private parts, different _sections_ are used. Each page is assigned a section, which by convention is a number of two digits (i.e. ranges from 10 to 99). * Pages are created, edited and viewed in a text editor which is by default configured to be [VIM](https://www.vim.org/). * If ready for the Internet, pages are exported to XHTML and can then be uploaded to any webspace. Alternatively, if pages are to be printed, they can be exported to PDF. All export uses [Pandoc](https://www.pandoc.org/) internally. * The D5Man User Interface runs in a terminal emulator. This way, all interactive parts are available from the commandline. Additionally, for “browsing” large pieces of information (like e.g. an API documentation), a web-based interface is desirable. Thus there is also a read-only web-based interface for exactly that purpose called IAL (_Information and Links_) as a separate program, see [ial(32)](ial.xhtml). A typical workflow for creating a page is as follows: 1. Create an empty page by copying from a template file (`d5man2.md`) to a file in a section directory or repository's `README.md`. 2. Populate the file with information. 3. Optionally: Export the file to target format of choice and print it or upload it to the Internet. To edit or recall a page, enter a prefix of the page's name in `d5mantui` and once it appears in the search results, open it by pressing ENTER. ## Benefits Compared to other personal Wiki approaches, D5Man provides the following set of advantages: * _Terminal-only workflow_ possible. This allows for good integration into an environment where most applications in use are also running in terminals. * Full control over _individual files_: D5Man does not write to the documents below the “roots” except for creating new pages. Apart from that, writing is the sole responsibility of the text editor. Additionally, pages exist as dedicated files allowing existing backup procedures to be effective for saving D5Man files as well. * _Partial Publishing_. It is possible to publish only a subset of the actually present documents as to distinguish between public and private information. Use of different sections for this purpose makes the distinction clear at all times. * _Balanced Markup_ Language. D5Man Legacy proposed an own syntax. While it is superior in certain aspects, it turned out to be too difficult to parse correctly. Thus D5Man 2 uses a thoughtfully crafted subset of Pandoc's Markdown which ensures compatibility with printed and web-based formats and provides reasonably well-readable and easily editable source files. * _Minimality_. After a failed attempt to develop a “large” system for the purpose, D5Man 2 stays minimal. At the core (Perl and Erlang parts), its source code is less than 1000 lines of code! ## Alternatives There are countless approaches to do _static blogs_ or _personal wikis_. ### Static website generation with Markdown Close-to-comprehensive list: , some candiates: [Hugo](https://gohugo.io/), [Jekyll](https://jekyllrb.com/) ### Local Wikis * Dedicated wiki: [DokuWiki](https://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki) * [Fossil SCM](https://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki) integrates a Wiki and Issue Tracker storing all data in an SQLite database. * [EMACS Org-Mode](https://orgmode.org/) ### Using VIM as a personal notekeeping application or Wiki * with help files: , * with vimwiki: , * D5Man Format 2 ============== If you are interested in the old D5Man Legacy format, see [d5man/legacy(32)](d5man_legacy.xhtml). Here, a selected subset of the elements from the rich syntax described in the Pandoc documentation is presented in order to obtain a sensible subset. Of course, there is no technical restriction for sticking to this subset. D5Man's text format is expected to always be read and written in UTF-8 encoding. ## Metadata A D5Man 2 Document begins with a header of following form: ~~~{.yaml} --- section: 32 x-masysma-name: d5man2 title: Ma_Sys.ma D5Man 2 lang: en-US author: ["Linux-Fan, Ma_Sys.ma (Ma_Sys.ma@web.de)"] keywords: ["d5man", "d5man2", "d5manapi", "d5mantui", "ial"] --- ~~~ This header which follows YAML syntax is called the _metadata_ in D5Man. It is a set of key-value assignments of form `key: value`. All fields which do not have any special meaning for Pandoc are prefixed `x-masysma-` as to indicate that they are additional fields used for D5Man. The use of the fields is as follows: `section` (required) : Defines the _section_ this page is part of. It is not really used in its Pandoc meaning (which would be the section for an actual manpage exported from the document), but the concept of D5Man manpages and actual manpages is similar to some extent (both provide textual information). `title` (required) : Defines a document title (in legacy D5Man called `description`) which is a single large heading to go above the document. `lang` (optional) : Gives the language in which the document (and/or its metadata) are written. `author` (optional) : Gives a list of authors. Syntax `["Linux-Fan, Ma_Sys.ma..."]` creates a YAML list with just one element in the example above. `keywords` (required) : A list of keywords (also in YAML syntax) to assign to the page. Note that D5Man API search querys consider only `x-masysma-name`, `section` and `keywords` and matches case-sensitively against prefixes. It is thus often useful to provide sensible subsets of the page's name in the `keywords` section. In legacy D5Man, this was called `tags`. `date` (optional) : Specifies the date of document creation in `YYYY/MM/DD HH:ii:ss` format. `toc` (optional) : Controls the generation of a table of contents for PDF exports (processed by pandoc only). `x-masysma-name` (required) : Determines the page's name. For newly created pages, it is recommended to chose names satisfying the regex `[a-z0-9_/]+`. Other names are supported, but may not contain any whitespace or other characters that are uncommon in file names processed by scripts (except for `/`). For _Document-Root_ organizazion, the file name should be the page's name with `/` replaced by `_` and an additional `.md` suffix. For tasks, suffix `.hot` should be used. `x-masysma-task-priority` (required and only allowed for tasks) : Specifies the priority of this task (cf. section _D5Man TUI Task Management_). Allowed values are the following: red, green, black, white, yellow, purple, delayed, considered. `x-masysma-task-type` (required and only allowed for tasks) : Specifies the type fo this task (cf. section _D5Man TUI Task Management_). Allowed values are the following: long, short, subtask, periodic. `x-masysma-version`, `x-masysma-copyright` (optional) : Specifies a version and copyright for the document (and the program it is describing). Format and use of these fields are entirely up to the user. `x-masysma-repository` (optional) : Provides a link to the source code repository associated with the document and/or the software it describes. `x-masysma-website` (optional) : Provides a link to the respective page on the (Ma_Sys.ma) Website. This allows e.g. Github users to find the Website which provides a correctly exported (i.e. readable) version of the distorted view that Github creates out of D5Man's Markdown files. `x-masysma-owned` (optional) : If present, this enables the inclusion of Ma_Sys.ma Logo and Icons in exported PDF files. Of course, the logos can also be replaced by different ones for local usage. Or one can leave out this key to avoid the use of logos in the export results altogether. `x-masysma-redirect` (optional) : This field either gives an absolute URL (`https://...`) or a file name. In case a file name is given, the given file (relative to the attachment directory) is opened instead of opening the page when running from D5Man TUI. All pages available through IAL need to supply this field. `x-masysma-download` (optional) : Specify an URL for downloading a file (used for Website generation). `x-masysma-web-priority`, `x-masysma-web-changefreq` (optional) : Defines a priority (0.0--1.0) and a change frequency (monthly, weekly etc.) to be used in sitemaps generated during the XHTML export. Default is priority=0.4, changefreq=monthly. `x-masysma-expires` (optional) : Expiry date. Same format as `date`. The meaning of this field is up to the user's interpretation. ### Section Structure The section structure used by the Ma_Sys.ma is as given in the following table. Sec Short Description --- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 Documentation in the style of a classical man-page. 21 IAL as generated from documentation 22 IAL hand-added files 23 IAL internal 31 Website pages providing general website content (navigation, license, ...). 32 Documentation for current Ma_Sys.ma developments (programs, scripts, etc.) 33 Legacy (_currently unused_) 34 Creative section with Mods and Stories 35 not public: UNI notes 37 Blog, Knowledge Base, self-contained pages, other public notes 42 not public: user notes 43 not public: tasks ## Attachments By convention, images included in the document are stored in a directory called the same as the page's name with (`/` replaced by `_`) and a suffix `_att` (instead of `.md`). For instance, this `README.md` has name `d5man2` thus the attachments would be stored in a directory `d5man2_att` next to the file. For page `d5man/legacy`, attachments go to `d5man_legacy_att` etc. Additionally, images which are supplied in vector formats (SVG or PDF) are included by their file name _without extension_. This allows the LaTeX export to use a PDF file and the XHTML export to use a SVG file without changing the source file. Finally, D5Man's XHTML export also instantiates a simple automatic conversion from PDF to SVG in order to avoid storing redundant vector graphics in the attachments directory. Unlike legacy D5Man, an explicit list of all files attached is no longer needed to be declared in the documents themselves. ## Top-Level Structure Documents consist of the leading metadata block (see _Metadata_) followed by a D5Man document which consists of headings, lists, tables, code and paragraphs. ## Headings D5Man proposes three levels of headings. The top-level headings are underlined by equals signs. The second-level headings are prefixed by `## ` (hash-hash-space). The third-level headings are prefixed by `### ` (hash-hash-hash-space). The following code shows all the heading styles. ~~~{.markdown} Top-Level Heading ================= Top-Level (e.g. introductory) content. ## Second-Level Heading Second-Level Content ### Third-Level Heading aka. List Title Inner Content / End of example. ~~~ ## Lists D5Man has numbered, unnumbered and definition lists. Legacy D5Man also proposed _pro and contra_-style lists which are as of now not retained in D5Man 2. Unnumberd list items are prefixed by an asterisk (`*`), numbered lists are prefixed by the item's number followed by a dot (`1.`, `2.`, etc.) and description lists' contents are prefixed by a `:` at the beginning of the first line of the description list's content. Note that for description lists, the offset from the left has to be exactly four characters wide (`: ` / colon-space-space-space on the first line; ` ` / space-space-space-space on the second line onwards). Here are examples for the respective list types. ~~~ Description List : This is the term being described. This is the second line of the term being described. Second Description List Item : Another item to be described. 1. First Item of a numbered list: This item has an additional line in source code. 2. Second 3. Third 4. Fourth * Item 1 of the unnumberd list has two lines in source code. * Item 2 has a single line. * Nested Item a * Nested Item b * Item 3 ~~~ ## Tables Two distinct notations exist for tables: Tables with headings and without headings. All tables start from the first character in the line and leave two spaces between columns. For tables with headings, there is a single dashed line below the individual headings. Example: ~~~{.markdown} Caption 1 Caption 2 ---------- ------------ Inner Cell Inner Cell 2 Other Cell Last Cell ~~~ For tables without headings, the same dashed lines are created and put above and below the respective table. Leaving out the captions, the table from before becomes this: ~~~{.markdown} ---------- ------------ Inner Cell Inner Cell 2 Other Cell Last Cell ---------- ------------ ~~~ ## Code Top-level code can be declared by either indenting the code with at least a single tab character or by enclosing it in lines with three tilde characters (`~~~`). Example for tilde-based code section (the source code uses indentation to make this appear as code in the output document): ~~~ code content ~~~ The tilde-based notation allows for a programming language to be declared by replacing the first `~~~` with `~~~{.language}` where `language` is replaced by a programming language name as known to `pandoc`. Examples include `c`, `markdown` and `java`. Alternatively, here is the indented variant (the source code uses tilde symbols to make this appear as code in the output document): ~~~ code content ~~~ ## Paragraphs and Inline Formatting Paragraphs are just regular text separated by two newlines. Throughout the document's text, it is possible to use _inline formatting_ to place emphasis, links etc. It is described in the following. Code : By using backtick-quotation, inline code can be expressed (`` ` ``code`` ` `` displays `code`). Escaping backticks inline requires them to be sourrounded by more backticks and space. See [stackoverflow.com/82718](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/82718/) for details. Emphasis : Like the legacy D5Man format, Markdown supports emphasis by surrounding the text to be emphasized with underscores e.g. `_emphasized_` yields _emphasized_. Superset and subset : Putting something in an index works by adding tilde symbols (`~`) around the part to be lowered, e.g. `H~2~O` for H~2~O. Elevating parts of a word is possible by surrounding it with hat symbols (`^`) e.g. `10^2^` for 10^2^ Links : Links to URLs or other pages are of format `[shortcut name](URL)` e.g. `[Example Page](http://www.example.com/)` gives [Example Page](http://www.example.com/). If a link is given by URL only, it is given in angled-brackets like this: `` gives . To link to another D5Man page, its XHTML name needs to be given: `[d5man/legacy(32)](d5man_legacy.xhtml)` gives [d5man/legacy(32)](d5man_legacy.xhtml). By convention, the link to another page is labelled by that page's name followed by its section in parentheses. To link to pages in other sections, one needs to prefix `../SECTION` to the link's target due to the D5Man directory structure being organized in sections (even if it was originally a Program-Root structure, D5Man export always generates files as if they were part of a Document-Root structure). Note that unlike in legacy D5Man, links are expected to only work for the XHTML export. Navigating the hypertext directly inside the editor is no longer a supported use case. Math : Inline Math is only supported for the PDF exports and can be expressed by LaTeX' single-dollar notation, e.g. `$\binom{1}{1}$` becomes $\binom{1}{1}$. For qotation and symbols, legacy D5Man used some automatic replacement logic. With the new version, this feature is no longer available, thus the use of UTF-8 symbols is suggested. On some Linux systems, quotation is easily available by [ALTGR]-[V] (`„`), [ALTGR]-[B] (`“`) and [ALTGR]-[N] (`”`). Forced spaces (aka. non-breaking spaces) can be inserted by using the respective unicode symbols. As described by [Thomas Peklak](https://coderwall.com/p/07mtla/insert-non-breaking-space-in-vim), a single non-breaking space can be entered in VIM by pressing [CTRL]-[K] [SPACE] [SPACE]. Similarly, a forced half-space can be entered by using the sequence [CTRL]-[V] [U] [2] [0] [2] [F]. Arrows are best inserted by using their UTF-8 symbols. The paragraph below shows a few examples, see for a more comprehensive treatise. Arrows: ← → ↑ ↓ ⇐ ⇒ ⇔ ## Images The general syntax for images is `![CAPTION](FILE)`. By convention, `FILE` is given relative to the page's file and if it is associated directly to the page, then it is placed in a directory with the page's name concatenated with a trailing `_att`. For instance, an attachment `test.png` for this very page would be loaded by specifying `![Test](d5man2_att/test.png)`. Note that for `.svg` and `.pdf` files the extension of the image file name is normally not given in order to allow an automatic detection by pandoc/LaTeX to take place. Compiling and Installing D5Man 2 ================================ D5Man 2 requires an Erlang OTP runtime and a suitable Perl interpreter as well as a selection of Perl modules. A declaration of all dependencies for an installation on a Debian stable system can be found in file `build.xml`. Only the Erlang-based `d5mantui` requires external dependencies and needs to be compiled, all other D5Man 2 components are scripts and run without compilation or further processing. As a build dependency, `mdvl-cecho` (or alternatively `cecho` as commented-out in `rebar.config`) is required. You can get the build instructions for package `mdvl-cecho` here: . Prior to attempting to run D5Man TUI, adjust its config file at `d5mantui4/config/sys.config` to refer to your local paths! To compile the individual parts, it might be sufficient to call `make` in directory `d5mantui4`. After this has succeeded, all components are on disk. To generate an installable Debian package, `ant` and the usual build tools for Debian packages are required. One can then build the package by invoking `ant package` in the repository's top-level directory. `d5mantui` ========== The D5Man Terminal User Interface (TUI) displays query results interactively in the terminal while typing the query. Additionally, it contains functions to build a basic _Task Management_ system on top of D5Man. ## Synopsis d5mantui [query] ## Configuration D5Man TUI can be configured through the `sys.config` file. The default configuration looks as follows: ~~~{.erlang} [{d5mantui4, [ {db_roots, ["/data/main/119_man_rr", "/data/main/120_mdvl_rr"]}, {command_editor, ["/usr/bin/vim"]}, {newpage_root, "/data/main/119_man_rr"} ]}, {kernel, [{error_logger, {file, "/tmp/d5mantui4.log"}}]} ]. ~~~ _Users must change this config prior to using D5man TUI_! The meaning of the properties is as follows: `db_roots` : Declares a list of directories to consult for D5Man pages. They can be either in _Document-Root_ or _Program-Root_ organization. All the pages found below the respective roots will be available for querying. `newpage_root` : Specifies the directory in which new pages are created. `command_editor` : Configures the Editor to use. It is recommended to use a terminal-based editor which creates a new instance upon invocation of this command. `error_logger` file : Configures a log to write errors to. In event of a D5Man TUI crash, please delete this file, reproduce the issue and then send the contents of this log file to the Ma_Sys.ma for analysis. ## Usage The screen could e.g. look as follows: ~~~ ─────────────────────────────[ Ma_Sys.ma D5Man Terminal User Interface 4.0.0 ]── [ ] ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────[ Query Results ]── 11 adler32 31 web/news 32 kbdcheck 11 bin2bmp 31 web/programs 32 lz4_ada 11 ma_capsblinker 32 big4 32 ma_inventory 11 ma_open_cl_info 32 blake3_ada 32 masysmaci/build 11 ma_sitecopy 32 bruteforce3 32 masysmaci/main 11 maartifact 32 conf-cli 32 masysmaci/pkgsync 11 maerct 32 conf-gui 32 matrix_screensaver 11 mahalt 32 d5man/legacy 32 maxbupst 11 maloadmon 32 decode_girocode 32 megasync 11 syssheet 32 gamuhr 32 pressed_keys 31 keysigning 32 i3bar 32 progress 31 web/about 32 ial 32 scanning 31 web/creative 32 image_viewer 32 screenindex 31 web/gpl 32 internet-enable-disable 32 shellscripts 31 web/knowledge 32 java-nostalgic-tools 32 ssd-optimization 31 web/main 32 jmbb 32 tar_ada 1 2New 3 4All 5 6Docs 7Tasks 8-DLY 9-Sub 0Quit ~~~ The first line is a prompt where the user can enter any query that will be used to find pages. The list below displays the search results and can be scrolled with [UP] and [DOWN] arrows on the keyboard. Upon pressing [ENTER], the selected page is opened. All commandline arguments to `d5manqtui` are treated as an input for the prompt. If the initial query (as given on the commandline) yields exactly one result, the TUI will not be displayed and the respective page will be opened directly. Function keys can be used as described in the following subsections. ### [F2] -- New Page/Task One can press [F2] to create a new page. To do this, the input at the prompt needs to be in format `SECTION NAME` i.e. the new page's section followed by its name. D5Man TUI then clears the prompt. In case of a regular page, it directly asks for a space-separated list of tags to assign to the page. Common tags are displayed in the _Query Results_ while this mode is active. After pressing [ENTER], a predefined template is copied to a new file and opened it in the configured editor. If SECTION is set to 43 then metadata about the task is also queried from the prompt (press [ENTER] to continue) and afterwards a task rather than a page is be created. This function only supports Document-Root organization for creating new files. ### [F4] -- All Displays all results for the given query (default). Queries will return tasks as well as documents depending on which matches the input string. ### [F6] -- Docs Hides tasks from the result list. ## [F7], [F8], [F9] -- D5Man TUI Task Management Since package version 1.0.54, D5Man provides some basic means to manage “tasks”, i.e. TODO lists or issues or the like. The idea behind this scheme is to leverage the Markdown format and D5Man's querying capabilities for management of tasks. Two distinct dimensions are considered to organize tasks: 1. The _task type_ specifies if this task is long, short, periodic or a subtask. The order of display is: periodic, then long, then short. 2. The _task priority_ specifies how important a task is by assinging colors (purple, red, yellow, green, black, white). The use of the colors is up to the user. Instead of a color a task can also be in state _considered_ or _delayed_: Considered means that it should be kept in mind but is not assigned any priority (think: very low priority) and _delayed_ means that it may be hidden because it is not expected to be worked on any time soon (e.g. not in the current week). D5Man assings the file extension `.hot` to task files to distinguish them from documents and all tasks are placed and expected to be in section 43. D5Man automatically finds tasks in Document-Root structures' section 43. Also, it scans the directories in Program-Root structures for `TODO.hot` files and adds them to the tasks to consider. The `x-masysma-name` field is expected to be set to a short identifier (e.g. code and number or similar) whereas the `title` is expected to summarize the matter of the task. ### [F8] -- DLY By default, tasks of priority _delayed_ are displayed. [F8] is a tristate toggle that displays the action that is going to happen when pressing it: 1. `8-DLY` -- First press [F8] to hide (-) the delayed tasks from the view and display only non-delayed tasks. 2. `8=DLY` -- Press [F8] again to display only (=) delayed tasks 3. `8+DLY` -- Press [F8] again to add non-delayed tasks (+) to the view again (returns to the initial state). ### [F9] -- Subtasks By default, tasks of type _subtask_ are displayed. [F9] is a tristate toggle that displays the action that is going to happen when pressing it: 1. `9-Sub` -- First press [F9] to hide (-) the subtasks from the view and display only long/short/periodic ones. 2. `9=Sub` -- Press [F9] again to display only (=) subtasks. 3. `9+Sub` -- Press [F9] again to add non-subtasks (+) to the view again (returns to the initial state). ## Change History Before the current revision (D5Man TUI 4), there was an implementation consisting of a daemon (`d5manapi`) and a client (`d5mantui` perl script / v.3). This had some advantages but was mostly much more complex than the current implementation. The new D5Man TUI 4 is close to a rewrite of the old functionality and thus doesn't run fully stable yet. See `xdev/d5mantui3.pl` and `xdev/d5manapi` for the old variants of these components. `d5manexportpdf` ================ ## Name `d5manexportpdf` -- Script to export D5Man 2 Pandoc Markdown to PDF ## Synopsis d5manexportpdf INPUT.md ## Description This invokes `pandoc` on the provided filename `INPUT.md` and writes the export result to `INPUT.md.pdf` (i.e. adds extension `.pdf` to the input file name). Note that due to hardcoded paths, this script only works if D5Man 2 is installed (e.g. as a Debian package). The script deliberately contains almost no logic at all. This allows it to be ported to other scripting languages like Windows Batch. Additionally, a “regular” pandoc invocation can serve as a fallback if D5Man 2 is not available. ## Example d5manexportpdf README.md This should produce a nicely readable PDF for any instructions supplied as part of Ma_Sys.ma repositories. ## Troubleshooting export issues If the export fails during the invocation of `pdflatex`, it will most likely generate a meaningless error message. Here is a regex for finding unicode chars which might not be supported: /[^\x00-\x7F] Source: `d5manexporthtml` ================= ## Name `d5manexporthtml` -- Export D5Man 2 roots to multiple XHTML pages ## Synopsis d5manexporthtml -o DESTDIR -i ROOT[,ROOT...] [-s SECTION[,SECTION...]] [-m PDF2SVG] [-u URLPREFIX] [-- PANDOCOPTIONS...] ## Description D5Man 2's HTML export exports a selection of sections from (optionally multiple) root directories to a given output directory structure. The output structure resembles a Document-Root structure independently of whether the given `ROOT` directories are Document-Root or Program-Root organized. In addition to the exported XHTML pages, a `sitemap.xml` and `.htaccess` files are generated to allow hosting the result structure online. PDF attachments are automatically converted to SVG. ## Options `-o DESTDIR` : Configures the output directory to be `DESTDIR` `-i ROOT[,ROOT...]` : Configures a comma-separated list of input directories. (As a result, it is currently impossible to process directories which contain comma as part of their name) `-s SECTION[,SECTION...]` : Specifies a list of sections to export. If this is not given, the default value of 11,31,32,33,34,37,38,39 will be used. `-m PDF2SVG` : Specifies the path to a `pdf2svg` executable. On Debian systems, package `pdf2svg` can be installed and then the default `/usr/bin/pdf2svg` will be sufficient. In other cases, it might be necessary to create an auxiliary script that invokes Inkscape or another tool capable of converting PDF to SVG. The `pdf2svg` is expected to take the input PDF file as its first parameter and the output SVG file as its second parameter. `-u URLPREFIX` : Defines a prefix to be used for sitemap generation. By default, it is set to `&masysma_url_prefix;` which will most likely _not work_. In case the generated sitemap is of interest, this parameter needs to be given and have an URL value. The Ma_Sys.ma Website uses `-u https://masysma.lima-city.de`, for instance. `-- PANDOCOPTIONS...` : After the double dashes, an arbitrary number of pandoc options can be given which are passed directly to the `pandoc` command. Most users will want to specify a `--template=...` here in order to obtain a nicely formatted page up to their liking. ## Ma_Sys.ma Variables Using this script, the invocation of `pandoc` is passed the following additional variables: `x-masysma-source` : Set to the Markdown source code file name for the current page. `x-masysma-meta-revised` : Set to the pages last modification in UTC (`YYYY-mm-dd HH:ii:ss`) `x-masysma-revised-human` : Set to the pages last modification in local timezone (`YYYY/mm/dd HH:ii:ss`) ## Examples As an example, consider downloading some of the Ma_Sys.ma Repositories into a common directory tree to obtain a structure as shown above in section _Example for a Program-Root Structure: Ma_Sys.ma Repositories_. Then, you could create an XHTML export of their contents as follows: $ mkdir /tmp/test $ d5manexporthtml -o /tmp/test -i /rr Below the output directory `/tmp/test`, this will create a document-root structure of output files like this: /tmp/test | +-- 11/ | | | +-- maloadmon_att/ | | | | | +-- ... | | | +-- ... | +-- 32/ | | | +-- d5man2.md | | | +-- d5man2.xhtml | | | +-- ... | +-- ... Opening `d5man2.xhtml` one can see the XHTML representation of this very page, it might look as follows: ![Excerpt from exporting this very page to XHTML (beginning of the page shown)](d5man2_att/exportpreview) Without further options, exporting uses the template supplied with pandoc. If you want to use this for your own purposes, it makes sense to derive an own template for customization.