Splitting the man page (was: Re: [MEncoder-users] aac encoding with lavc)

[Fredrik Eriksson]

On 28-09-2006, at 11:56, Guillaume POIRIER wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On 9/28/06, Fredrik Eriksson <feffese at yahoo.se> wrote:
>> On 28-09-2006, at 10:32, Guillaume POIRIER wrote:
>> > On 9/27/06, Fredrik Eriksson <feffese at yahoo.se> wrote:
>> >> For a while now it has been possible to encode aac audio with -oac
>> >> lavc. However, the man page still doesn't say anything about it.
>> >> Wouldn't it be good to update the man page?
>> >
>> > This is a problem that is hard to solve, because there both are few
>> > information about these, and there likely are a lot of things to
>> > cover. In addition, MPlayer/Mencoder's man page is already gigantic
>> > (bigger than gcc's) so it wouldn't help to add a whole lot more
>> > (considering the fact that ppl don't like to RTFM).
>>
>> problem indeed. Wouldn't it be a good idea to split the man pages for
>> mplayer and mencoder? that would at least make the man page for
>> mplayer much smaller.
>
> Yes, as you noted, it'd mostly shrink mplayer's manpage, whereas
> mencoder's manpage would mostly remain as big as it currently is.
>
>
>> Maybe it would be possible to split the
>> mencoder man page in two as well, one with basic mencoder usage, and
>> one with advanced encoding options?
>
> True, but what do you call "advanced" and "basic" options? Not that
> easy to sort out...

I was thinking about those options that mainly affect encoding speed/ 
quality tradeoff as basic, while those that you have to use a  
different value for every source is advanced, though it's true, it's  
not always easy.

>
> In any case, yes, the issue of splitting the manpage has been brought
> up many times in the past, and hasn't been done for different reasons:
> mainly because nobody cared to implement a way to do it, and also
> because no satisfary idea has been provided either.
>

Then i just have to at least come up with another idea :)

mplayer and mencoder needs separate man pages, options that applies  
to both programs could either be in both (easier for users), or just  
in the mplayer page (easier to maintain):
mplayer
mencoder

there are tons of filters, they deserve to be in a separate man page:
mplayer_filters

it could also be easier to have the codec specific options in  
separate man pages:
mencoder_lame
mencoder_lavc
mencoder_xvid
mencoder_x264
etc.

it's quite bad if you can't add document all features in the man  
pages because it's to big, it makes us poor users confused and  
prevents us from using the full power of the great tools you provide.

I can't promise anything but if we only can agree to how the man  
pages should be I might be able to assist with the split.

Fredrik Eriksson