2025-08-22 10:01:31 +0200, Marc Chantreux:
[...]
* lot of people just don't use info
* most just don't know it exists
* the ergonomy of the info command is terrible
* info is pleasant just for people who installed emacs or vim plugins.
[...]
I never could understand what issues people had with "info". I
can only explain it by them not having spent the time
understanding how to use it.
What's the ergonomy issue? Is that because it's {, } to go to
previous/next search result instead of N/n like in vi?
IMO, and especially with zsh's manual where it's of exceptional
quality, "info" is orders of magnitude better than man or HTML
(and I don't even use half its features).
The killer feature is definitely the index (i), with completion
and searchable (I) and available on command line (like in "info
zsh typeset"; and with (perfectible as discussed not so long ago
here) completion in zsh). The day I discovered that, there was
no turning back.
Compared to HTML:
- can be used from a terminal (like zsh, a terminal application,
more than anything else).
- quicker to bring up: info zsh; even info zsh <Tab> for
completion on nodes vs x-www-browser
/usr/share/doc/zsh-doc/html/index.html
- can be searched as a whole (/) or current tree (ESC /) and s,
^S... alternatives for those used to emacs.
- regexp support in search
- index jump one key away (i, next with ,)
- index with completion
- index search one key away (I)
- node navigation (prev, next, up...) with single keys
- node search with completion
- easier hyperlink navigation than in most browsers
- no need for a mouse
I've never used vim/emacs to read info, but I've tried pinfo in
a distant past, which looked prettier but was pointless as
missing the very feature that sets info above everything else.
My only use for the HTML version is that it's available online
so I can give references to the manual like at Q&A sites such as
https://unix.stackexchange.com where I have literally hundreds
of answers pointing to various index entries in the manual.
And BTW, once we change the documentation format, all those
links will be broken.
If it's an issue with the look in graphical browsers (firefox,
chrome...) we're having with the current HTML version, can't
that be just fixed with CSS or different templates?