[cups.general] Some of the manpages seem sparse when compared toweb docs

[Michael Sweet]

wtautz wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> If one compares the references webpages to manpages they seem rich
> in comparison. For example if I go to the
> http://localhost/help/ref-printers-conf.html?TOPIC=References&QUERY=
> I get more detailed doc then when I go
> http://localhost/631/help/man-printers.conf.html?TOPIC=Man+Pages&QUERY=
> 
> I suppose the response would be, one is a reference ;-)
> 
> Another instance is lpoptions which doesn't explain much that one can do
> with the -o option
> whereas http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/options.html is richly
> detailed. As for as
> I can tell this webpage doesn't even get installed, i.e., I have to go
> to www.cups.org to
> read it.

Strange, help/options.html is listed in the documentation makefile,
so I'd guess this is a packaging problem in your distro?

The man pages are intentionally sparse - we a) don't have the
resources to mantain a lot of separate but similar documentation,
b) the nroff format isn't particularly rich compared to HTML, and
c) they are intended as quick reference guides (like "I don't remember
this option name or the syntax of this command") while the HTML help
files are more in-depth with some tutorial-like info...

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products           mike at easysw dot com
Internet Printing and Publishing Software        http://www.easysw.com