Filed under: Software, UNIX / BSD
Here comes your man (viewer)
Man pages have been around since before I was born (circa 1971, actually). The people who will take an interest in this post are most likely familiar with the 'man' documentation format for most UNIX commands. While little has changed in the form and function of the man page – besides spawning some offshoots like GNU's info – the options for reading them in a more pleasant GUI environment have grown more diverse. Mac OS X users have a few options beyond typing 'man xyz' into the Terminal or using man pages on the web...
There are Cocoa applications like Man Viewer, Man Handler and ManOpen which allow you to search for and browse man pages in a way more familiar to OS X users. They all perform text searches within an opened page, Man Handler having the most Leopard-friendly results. To the best of my knowledge, only ManOpen allows for Apropos searches which allow you to find man pages based on their subject matter. I also like the ability to open several man pages simultaneously, which ManOpen and Man Handler provide but Man Viewer does not. Rather, Man Viewer provides a single-window interface, which has its upsides as well.
Most of the Cocoa viewers do not handle hypertext links within the man pages (ManOpen provides related links). For a fluid solution in that area, there's Bwana or Sogudi (the Safari 3 version of Sogudi is currently a beta), tools that integrate with Safari to allow the opening of man pages right in the browser with code highlighting and links to related pages. While Bwana is an application, Sogudi is an InputManager which allows and both allow you to type man:mdfind in the url field to load a pretty (man2html) version of mdfind's man page (with Bwana, you can also use 'open man:mdfind' from the command line) . And with both you get a tabbed interface and great search features to boot. If you've already got Safari open for other purposes, it's a great way to make use of the browser. By the same token, it's a lot of app to load if you just want to remember an ls switch.
Another option – which may be great in some instances and fairly worthless in others – is Man2PDF. Basically, it produces a well-formatted PDF of the selected man page. Perfect for printing and viewing with Preview, but not the best choice for quick consultation.
Were I asked to pick a winner, and Safari was already running, I'd say Sogudi wins for good looks (inherited, in part, from Safari) and great usability. ManOpen wins in the standalone category with its Apropos search and hypertext links.
Of course, a vanilla man command wins for easy accessibility where you need it most.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Frank said 6:13PM on 3-07-2008
Command-line man, of course, allows searches as well.
Just type '/' and what you're looking for, and hit return. 'n' will jump to the next result. 'b' to go back a page, space to go forward.
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jollyllama said 6:44PM on 3-07-2008
Outside there's a box car waiting, outside the family stew, out by the fire breathing, outside we wait 'til face turns blue.
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johnmc said 6:58PM on 3-07-2008
ITYM 'family store"
jollyllama said 8:12PM on 3-07-2008
Wow, you're right. It's that Boston accent coming through, it's amazing how he can sing "store" to rhyme with "blue". Thanks, would have kept singing this wrong all my life.
Paul D said 9:37AM on 3-10-2008
I now have that awesome opening wandering bass line stuck in my head....and that's NOT a bad thing.
Michel said 7:35PM on 3-07-2008
man -t ls
will send on the output a postscript formatted version of the man page for the "ls" command
---
man -t ls | open -f -a /Applications/Preview.app/
will send a postscript formatted man page to the Preview application, preview will transform the postscript in PDF automatically. you can save the document in pdf with Preview like any document.
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Zak said 7:55PM on 3-07-2008
Man Handler wins for best name.
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Kevin said 1:08PM on 3-27-2008
Glad you like the name!
Thanks to TUAW for the nice mention of Man Handler. We experienced a nice bump in hits over at Geeksuit.com from just the mention!
Benjamin said 10:44PM on 3-07-2008
It's worth noting that Bwana works with any browser, not just Safari.
I like ManOpen, but the ability to open multiple man pages in tabs with Camino makes Bwana the winner in my opinion.
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David Hildreth said 1:36AM on 3-08-2008
the title reminds me of a great pixies song
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joem said 3:48AM on 3-08-2008
Personally, I've been using either a plain 'man' in terminal, or 'man|aless' which would pipe the results into AquaLess, a nice aqua replacement for 'less' with syntax highlighting of man pages, among other things.
But maybe I'll try some of these.
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Michael Sternberg said 12:44AM on 3-09-2008
Correction needed: man:mdfind in Safari' the location bar works just fine for Bwana, as does "open man:foo" on the command line. I hear InputManagers are trouble, so my vote is for Bwana.
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Brett Terpstra said 7:25AM on 3-09-2008
Correction made, thanks! I had both loaded and couldn't tell which was doing what, I guess.
Conor said 9:44AM on 3-09-2008
Thank you for mentioning Bwana, glad to hear people find it useful.
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Mark Hughes said 4:03PM on 3-09-2008
I think you need Xcode to get this, but without installing anything else, you can use:
x-man-path://NAME
or
x-man-path://SECTION/NAME
to open any man page in a Terminal window with less.
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Kami Harbinger said 4:06PM on 3-09-2008
Argh. Typo in the previous post...
I think you need Xcode to get this, but without installing anything else, you can use:
x-man-page://NAME
or
x-man-page://SECTION/NAME
to open any man page in a Terminal window with less.