| <refentry xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" |
| xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" |
| xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" |
| xmlns:src="http://nwalsh.com/xmlns/litprog/fragment" |
| xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" |
| version="5.0" xml:id="man.th.title.max.length"> |
| <refmeta> |
| <refentrytitle>man.th.title.max.length</refentrytitle> |
| <refmiscinfo class="other" otherclass="datatype">integer</refmiscinfo> |
| </refmeta> |
| <refnamediv> |
| <refname>man.th.title.max.length</refname> |
| <refpurpose>Maximum length of title in header/footer</refpurpose> |
| </refnamediv> |
| |
| <refsynopsisdiv> |
| <src:fragment xml:id="man.th.title.max.length.frag"> |
| <xsl:param name="man.th.title.max.length">20</xsl:param> |
| </src:fragment> |
| </refsynopsisdiv> |
| |
| <refsection><info><title>Description</title></info> |
| |
| <para>Specifies the maximum permitted length of the title part of the |
| man-page <literal>.TH</literal> title line header/footer. If the title |
| exceeds the maxiumum specified, it is truncated down to the maximum |
| permitted length.</para> |
| |
| <refsection><info><title>Details</title></info> |
| |
| |
| <para>Every man page generated using the DocBook stylesheets has a |
| title line, specified using the <literal>TH</literal> roff |
| macro. Within that title line, there is always, at a minimum, a title, |
| followed by a section value (representing a man "section" -- usually |
| just a number).</para> |
| |
| <para>The title and section are displayed, together, in the visible |
| header of each page. Where in the header they are displayed depends on |
| OS the man page is viewed on, and on what version of nroff/groff/man |
| is used for viewing the page. But, at a minimum and across all |
| systems, the title and section are displayed on the right-hand column |
| of the header. On many systems -- those with a modern groff, including |
| Linux systems -- they are displayed twice: both in the left and right |
| columns of the header.</para> |
| |
| <para>So if the length of the title exceeds a certain percentage of |
| the column width in which the page is viewed, the left and right |
| titles can end up overlapping, making them unreadable, or breaking to |
| another line, which doesn't look particularly good.</para> |
| |
| <para>So the stylesheets provide the |
| <parameter>man.th.title.max.length</parameter> parameter as a means |
| for truncating titles that exceed the maximum length that can be |
| viewing properly in a page header.</para> |
| |
| <para>The default value is reasonable but somewhat arbitrary. If you |
| have pages with long titles, you may want to experiment with changing |
| the value in order to achieve the correct aesthetic results.</para> |
| </refsection> |
| |
| </refsection> |
| </refentry> |