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https://github.com/typesanitizer/ozil

Browsing man pages and help pages with zero friction.
https://github.com/typesanitizer/ozil

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Browsing man pages and help pages with zero friction.

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README 

        
# ozil - A man with intelligence and vision [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.com/theindigamer/ozil.svg?token=atg5zCeDiWzbYpJit3Kx&branch=master)](https://travis-ci.com/theindigamer/ozil)



`ozil` assists you with viewing man/help pages. It is intended as a

porcelain for `man`/`--help` + `less`/`more`/`most`.



[Note: Support for man pages is not yet ready. If you try to read a man page,

`ozil` might crash or display something weird.]



## Table of contents



- [Features](#features)

  * [Planned](#planned)

- [Platforms](#platforms)

- [Installing](#installing)

  * [Download a binary](#download-a-binary)

  * [Building from source](#building-from-source)

- [Usage](#usage)

  * [Configuration](#configuration)

- [Contributing](#contributing)

- [Thanks](#thanks)

- [Miscellaneous](#miscellaneous)

  * [Alternatives](#alternatives)

  * [Relation to mandb](#relation-to-mandb)

  * [Non-goals](#non-goals)



## Features



- [X] A top, top qualitee name.

- [ ] Transparently works with man pages and help pages (typically

    accessed with `--help` or `-h`).

  + [ ] [TODO: Insert GIF]

  + [X] Help pages

  + [ ] Man pages

- [ ] Follow links inside man/help pages with hints.

  + [X] Help pages

  + [ ] Man page

- [ ] Automatic detection of subcommand help pages.

  + [X] Help pages

  + [ ] Man pages

- [X] Configurable keybindings with hot-reloading.

- [X] Automatic search for local, project-specific executables

      based on your build system (contributions to support more build systems

      are welcome!).



![Demo with subcommand detection and links](https://i.imgur.com/vz4pPug.gif)



### Planned



- Proper man page support (fill remain check-boxes in Feature list). Given the

  variety of macros present in man pages, this is a big task, so please have

  some patience. :sweat_smile:

- Basic options to customize appearance (with hot-reloading).

- Search text (see [issue 10](https://github.com/theindigamer/ozil/issues/10)).



## Platforms



Currently, only Linux is supported. Support for other platforms depends

on user contributions. (Note: Windows support is not possible before

changes are made to the Vty package which is a dependency.)



## Installing



### Download a binary



Binaries are unavailable at the moment but I plan on adding them. See

[issue 12](https://github.com/theindigamer/ozil/issues/12) for current status.



### Building from source



Get [stack](https://docs.haskellstack.org/en/stable/README/#how-to-install)

first. Then run



    git clone https://github.com/theindigamer/ozil.git

    cd ozil && stack install



This will install `ozil` to `~/.local/bin` which is (hopefully?) on your

`$PATH`.



If you wish to use `cabal` instead of `stack`, use `cabal v2-install`

instead of `stack install`. This will install `ozil` to `~/.cabal/bin`.



## Usage



If you want to see the help for `foo`, run `ozil foo`. If you want to

see the help for `foo bar` (where `bar` is a subcommand of `foo`) run

`ozil 'foo bar'`.



If you're want a man page from a specific section (e.g. `man(1)`), you

can use `ozil man.1` (Note: This might still crash as documented at the

beginning of the Readme).



That's mostly it. `ozil` will guide you as needed. In case of

ambiguities, it will present you with an option to make a choice and

possibly save that choice.



### Configuration



Currently, `ozil` will place a configuration file at

`$HOME/.config/ozil/ozil.yaml` (it will prompt you every time you run it

if that file doesn't exist). You can save your preferred keybindings

there. The default keybindings are already present, so you can tweak

those to your liking. (Note: due to the quirkiness of YAML, `n` needs to

be quoted.)



If that path doesn't work for your distro (or on Mac OS) - please open

an issue and I'll try to figure something out.



TODO: Document keybinding configuration more thoroughly.



## Contributing



See [Contributing.md](Contributing.md).



## Thanks



Special thanks to the Brick maintainer @jtdaugherty for making such as

easy to use and well-documented TUI library. Writing `ozil` wouldn't

have been possible without it :smile:. Also, thanks to Mark Karpov for

Megaparsec.



## Miscellaneous



### Alternatives



Let's say you don't want to install `ozil` for some reason but still want

some of the features. How can you get that?



* For automatic launching, you can have a shell function. For example, I have

  the following function which I used before writing `ozil` -

  ```

  function vh() { # vh == view help

      if [ "$1" = "stack" ]; then

          "$@" --help | less

      else

          man "$@" || ("$@" --help | less -R) || ("$@ -h | less -R)

      fi

  }

  ```

  which is fairly crude, doesn't handle all the cases, but still kinda' works.

* For following links inside man pages, you can use

  [`man2html(1)`](https://linux.die.net/man/1/man2html) to generate HTML files

  for all the man pages you typically consult. It will try to guess links to

  other man pages and insert them as hyperlinks. You can then use a text-based

  browser like [`lynx(1)`](https://linux.die.net/man/1/lynx) to view those pages

  in your terminal.



### Relation to mandb



- Currently `ozil` depends on `man` for path handling; it doesn't

  duplicate databases or go hunting for files by itself. This may

  change in the future.



### Non-Goals



- Be a 1-to-1 replacement for `man` or `less`.