pud-base(7)                     MISCELLANEOUS                      pud-base(7)



  NAME
      pud-base - a description of the Portable Unix Documentation base
      language

      The macros in this package have been ported to both HTML and troff.

  DESCRIPTION
      pud-base - A description of the Portable Unix Documentation (PUD) base
      language. The macros in this package have been ported to both HTML and
      troff.  This package is used by the PUD mini-language for authoring
      manual pages (pud-man) and the PUD language for FAQ authoring (pud-faq).

      There is a small list of known issues in the ISSUES section, mostly
      concerning the troff device. These should generally be of no concern at
      all, but if you run into trouble look there first. A quick glance
      through the list before you run into trouble may be the wisest thing to
      do.

  INTRODUCTION TO THE ITEMIZE ENVIRONMENT
      The itemize environemnt is the PUD workhorse for lists, enumerations,
      itemizations, and other tailed creatures. A simple and valid use is for
      example

        \begin{itemize}
            \item{\bf{foo}}
               For I am foo.
            \items{
               {\bf{barra}}
               {\bf{zuttelezut}}
            }
               For we are bar and zut.
         \end{itemize}

      This source result in the following output:

      foo
        For I am foo.
      barra
      zuttelezut
        For we are bar and zut.

      This is not impressive at all, but it gives an idea of how itemize
      works.  The following example is a single itemize environment providing
      a rollercoasterride through most of the features of the itemize
      environment.  As shown below, it is possible to change all the itemize
      settings and styles at will even within a single itemize instance. Of
      course this is not useful at all except for demonstrating the itemize
      capabilities, but it goes to show that the itemize macros are quite
      robust (by virtue of modularity).

      NOTE
      The entire listing below was put in PUD's spacing environment, described
      further below. The environment was used to create extra margins on the
      two sides.

         1  Spacing modes compact and cascade are determined by the key
            flow.  The current mode is compact, meaning that the itemize
            token and the ensuing text are on the same line.  Below, compact
            mode is switched off (approximately) halfway.  The interitem key
            determines the amount skipped between an item description and
            the next item.

         2  Several item modes (custom, mark, enumeration).

         3  Several enumeration modes (roman, arabic, alphabetic).

       iv)  The style of a list can be changed while in the middle of it.

        v)  Nuther item.

       vi)  The list can be 'interupted' and resumed (by means of the
            \intermezzo#1 macro).

        Perhaps you wonder what good is THAT for, and justly so.  The
        \intermezzo#1 macro should only be used inbetween different items,
        i.e. it should not split content belonging to a single item.

   [7]  Items can be optionally and automatically right and/or left
        delimited. The current item is delimited with square brackets.

    [8] Items can be left or right aligned.

    [9] Items can be stacked, which is supported only when flow is set to
        cascade.

    [10]
        Beginning with this item, flow is set to cascade.

    Implying
    That
    Stacking
        is now possible.

  [12]
        (back to right-align) The itemcounter just keeps running by the way.

  [18]  (back to compact) But the counter can be manipulated at will.

     o  A bullet item.
     o  Now interitem is set to 0 (affecting the current list), and a new
        list is started contiguous to the present text (by having its
        margintop set to 0).
        a.  Hubris
        b.  Laziness
        c.  Impatience
        Are the three virtues of programming.
     o  This concludes a listing showing most of the itemize capabilities.

  USING THE ITEMIZE ENVIRONMENT
      You steer the itemize environment by providing it with tag-value pairs
      like so:

         \begin{itemize}{
            {flow}{compact}
            {interitem}{1}
            {align}{right}
            {type}{abc}
            {rp}{.}
         }

      This is the list of tags that you may use.

      margintop
        Top of table, anomalous unit (ems), default 0.

      interitem
        Paragraph skip in ems inbetween items, default 0.

      flow
        Set to compact or cascade

      textindent
        Width of text indent in ems.

      itemmargin
        Width of item margin in ems (for right-aligned items).

      mark
        E.g. \*{itembullet} (if type=mark), affects \item.

      align
        One of left or right (item alignment), default left.

      class_all
        class name assigned to all block-level elements

      lp
        What's printed immediately to the left of an item.

      rp
        What's printed immediately to the right of an item.

      type
        One of mark, roman, abc, arabic, affects \item.

      itemcount
        The count of items seen so far, e.g. 13 right now.

      You need to know that the itemize environment internally maps these tags
      to dollar keys simply by prepending a dollar.  Thus, if you want to
      reset one of the values associated with such a tag, you need to do e.g.

         \set{$align}{right}
         \set{$itemcount}{30}

      A more robust to do this is to ensure that the modified key is retrieved
      from the right dictionary, i.e. the top-level itemize dictionary, as
      follows.

         \set{{dict}{itemize}}{$align}{right}
         \set{{dict}{itemize}}{$itemcount}{30}


  THE SPACING ENVIRONMENT
      Its syntax is identical to that of the itemize environment.  It accepts
      tags left, right, top, and bottom.  These should receive numeric values.
      The associated unit is em.

      The troff device does not yet support the top and bottom tags.

  MACROS
      \enref#2
      \iref#2
      \lref#2
      \aref#2
      \httpref#1
      \sibref#1
      \sibref#2
      \sibref#3
        \enref#2 creates a link for which the first argument is the anchor and
        for which the second argument is the content (which can be left
        empty).  \iref#2 takes such an anchor as the first argument and it
        takes content that carries the link as the second argument. \lref#2
        takes a file name (possibly including a relative or absolute path) as
        the first argument and content as the second argument. \aref#2 takes a
        URL (later possibly a URI) as the first argument and content as the
        second argument. \sibref#2 takes a label as argument which presumably
        is the name of some application.  It may append an extension depending
        on the current device, and it assumes that label + extension is the
        name of a file in the current directory.  The second argument is
        displayed in the text. For \sibref#1 the displayed text is the same as
        the label. For \sibref#3 the second argument is an additional anchor
        within the file being linked to, and the third argument is the
        displayed text.  \httpref#1 simply prints a URL which will be active
        when html is output.

      \par#1
      \cpar#2
      \car#1
      \ccar#2
        These are all paragraph macros that carry the paragraph content as the
        last argument. The first argument of \cpar#2 and \ccar#2 is the
        caption. These macros will ensure wellformedness for devices that
        support it, such as HTML. For more information on the differences
        between these macros consult the entries below.

      \par
      \cpar#1
      \car
      \ccar#1
        Use \car where you don't need a paragraph skip, but just need to
        indicate that you are in text mode again. You can simply always use
        \par and never use \car. If you care about the details of spacing
        though, or if you have particular trouble for example in creating an
        itemize environment where you do not want top and bottom margins, then
        it could be worthwile to turn to \car. Examples for using \car are:
        o After an environment that always carries a bottom margin.
        o After a caption that always carries a bottom margin, such as most
          sectioning commands (e.g. \sec in the manual macros).
        o After an environment that does not carry a bottom margin, and where
          you specifically want the environment to be contiguous to the
          enclosing text. The listing you are currently reading is an example
          of this.
        As promised. The \car macro may feel a little unusual. If you don't
        mind standing the chance of a little spurious vertical white-space
        just use \par all the time. If you really need it, such as in an
        'inline' listing as above, the \car macro is ready to do the job.

      \bf#1
      \it#1
      \tt#1
      \v#1
      \ftinc#2
      \ftdec#2
        The first four items set their argument in the font specified.  \tt#1
        and \v#1 both denote a typewriter font. These macros should not be
        nested if troff is to be among the output devices. Support for the
        last two items is not yet very robust. They temporarily increment
        respectively decrement the font by the amount of the first argument
        and apply the resulting setting to the second argument.

      \verbatim#1
      \verbatix#1
        Make the device output the contents verbatim in a mono-spaced font,
        obeying spaces and newlines. This does not prohibit expansion of zoem
        macros, use \protect#1 for that. The macro \verbatim#1 will create a
        non-breaking environment.

  ISSUES
      Nesting
        Do not nest \bf#1, \it#1, \tt#1, or \v#1 macros if troff is among the
        output devices. It will yield unexpected results.

      The rest of this list pertains to the itemize environment.

    Boldness
      There is currently not a way to get bold (Roman) numerals using the
      automatic enumeration mode within itemize, or to change the appearance
      of any of the other enumeration types.

    Margins
      Do not use fractional values for textindent and itemmargin in the
      itemize environment, if troff is among the output devices.  The reason
      is that the PUD macros use the difference between these two values and
      pass them on to the output devices. Troff rounds all values it gets and
      thus the additive relationship between the values may be lost.



  pud-base 1.002, 09-149            29 May 2009                      pud-base(7)
