Hi,
i’ve two problems: first, to get a summary of all man-commands in a certain path (to build a list about them)
Second, to debug the text-output of man pages using Applescript: the titles and some words, hyphens have twice characters, punctuations.
try this:
do shell script "man mv"
Hi,
why not online?
openManPageOnline("mv")
on openManPageOnline(topic)
set section to word 2 of (do shell script "man " & topic)
open location "http://www.manpagez.com/man/" & section & "/" & topic & "/"
end openManPageOnline
i’m able to filter the biggest bugs with find-replace and applescript’s item del., but its not enough. What a strange man output, its a mess…
Also a summary reference like in Onyx should be possible.
here is another way, it prints out the man page and creates a PDF
property keyterm : "grep"
set keyterm to text returned of (display dialog "" default answer "")
try
set manFolderPath to ((path to documents folder as Unicode text) & "Unix_man_Pages (PDFs):")
set manFile to manFolderPath & keyterm & "-ManPage.pdf"
set fileURL to CheckManFile(manFile)
if fileURL is not "" then
tell application "Safari" to open location fileURL
return
end if
do shell script ("mkdir -p " & quoted form of POSIX path of manFolderPath)
set manFilePath to quoted form of POSIX path of manFile
do shell script "/usr/bin/man -t " & quoted form of keyterm & " | /usr/bin/pstopdf -i -o " & manFilePath
tell application "Finder" to set fileURL to URL of file manFile
tell application "Safari" to open location fileURL
on error errorMsg number errorNum
display alert "Error " & errorNum message errorMsg buttons "Cancel" default button 1
end try
-- end clicked
on CheckManFile(m)
tell application "Finder"
if exists file m then
return URL of file m
else
return ""
end if
end tell
end CheckManFile
A simple command to open it in preview (no internet connection required)
do shell script "man -t grep | open -f -a preview"
There is also the “bwana” application, which opens a man page in your browser, formatted, with links.
Combining the worlds of Unix, Windows and Mac OS you can even directly create MS Word documents from man pages:
do shell script "groff -man -Thtml /usr/share/man/man1/mdutil.1 | textutil -stdin -format html -convert doc -output ~/Desktop/mdutil.doc;open ~/Desktop/mdutil.doc"
Nevertheless this should be avoided at all cost 
Wooaa.
i like such kind of avalanches!
i’m more than impressed.
my script is a bit clumpsy, like this:
set r1 to "/usr/share/man"
set r2 to "/usr/X11/share/man"
set r3 to "/usr/local/clamXav/share/man"
set r4 to "/usr/local/share/man"
set the_pt to {r1, r2, r3, r4}
set ch_pt to choose from list the_pt with prompt "Which path?" default items (item 1 of the_pt)
if ch_pt is false then return 0
set ch_pt to ch_pt as text
set search_str to the text returned of (display dialog "Enter man page" default answer "ssh")
set comp_cmd to ("man " & search_str as text)
set the_page to do shell script comp_cmd
--filter simple twice characters
set to_write to my find_rep(the_page)
set inputFile to ((path to documents folder) as text) & "Man pages:Man " & search_str & ".txt"
try
--open manual file
do shell script "open " & quoted form of POSIX path of inputFile
on error
--write manual to file
open for access file the inputFile with write permission
write to_write to file the inputFile --starting at eof
close access file the inputFile
--open manual file
do shell script "open " & quoted form of POSIX path of inputFile
end try
on find_rep(the_page) --a bit useless
set searchList to {"_", "-", "``", "''"}
set replaceList to {"", "", "`", "'"}
set T to the_page
set tid to text item delimiters
repeat with i from 1 to (count searchList)
set text item delimiters to item i of searchList
set T to text items of T
set text item delimiters to item i of replaceList
set T to T as string
end repeat
set text item delimiters to tid
return T
end find_rep
a last question:its possible to create a list/summary of man pages given a certain path?