1 <refentry xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
2 xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
3 xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
4 xmlns:src="http://nwalsh.com/xmlns/litprog/fragment"
5 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
6 version="5.0" xml:id="man.endnotes.are.numbered">
8 <refentrytitle>man.endnotes.are.numbered</refentrytitle>
9 <refmiscinfo class="other" otherclass="datatype">boolean</refmiscinfo>
12 <refname>man.endnotes.are.numbered</refname>
13 <refpurpose>Number endnotes?</refpurpose>
17 <src:fragment xml:id="man.endnotes.are.numbered.frag">
18 <xsl:param name="man.endnotes.are.numbered">1</xsl:param>
22 <refsection><info><title>Description</title></info>
24 <para>If the value of <parameter>man.endnotes.are.numbered</parameter> is
25 non-zero (the default), then for each non-empty<footnote>
26 <para>A “non-empty” notesource is one that looks like
27 this:<literallayout class="monospaced"> <ulink url="http://docbook.sf.net/snapshot/xsl/doc/manpages/">manpages</ulink></literallayout>
28 an “empty” notesource is on that looks like this:<literallayout class="monospaced"> <ulink url="http://docbook.sf.net/snapshot/xsl/doc/manpages/"/></literallayout>
29 </para></footnote> “notesource”:
33 <para>a number (in square brackets) is displayed inline after the
34 rendered inline contents (if any) of the notesource</para>
37 <para>the contents of the notesource are included in a
38 numbered list of endnotes that is generated at the end of
39 each man page; the number for each endnote corresponds to
40 the inline number for the notesource with which it is
44 The default heading for the list of endnotes is
45 <literal>NOTES</literal>. To output a different heading, set a value
46 for the <parameter>man.endnotes.section.heading</parameter>
50 <para>The endnotes list is also displayed (but without
51 numbers) if the value of
52 <parameter>man.endnotes.list.enabled</parameter> is
57 <para>If the value of <parameter>man.endnotes.are.numbered</parameter> is
58 zero, numbering of endnotess is suppressed; only inline
59 contents (if any) of the notesource are displayed inline.
61 <para>If you are thinking about disabling endnote numbering by setting
62 the value of <parameter>man.endnotes.are.numbered</parameter> to zero,
63 before you do so, first take some time to carefully
64 consider the information needs and experiences of your users. The
65 square-bracketed numbers displayed inline after notesources may seem
66 obstrusive and aesthetically unpleasing<footnote><para>As far as notesources that are links, ytou might
67 think it would be better to just display URLs for non-empty
68 links inline, after their content, rather than displaying
69 square-bracketed numbers all over the place. But it's not better. In
70 fact, it's not even practical, because many (most) URLs for links
71 are too long to be displayed inline. They end up overflowing the
72 right margin. You can set a non-zero value for
73 <parameter>man.break.after.slash</parameter> parameter to deal with
74 that, but it could be argued that what you end up with is at least
75 as ugly, and definitely more obstrusive, then having short
76 square-bracketed numbers displayed inline.</para></footnote>,
78 but in a text-only output format, the
79 numbered-notesources/endnotes-listing mechanism is the only
80 practical way to handle this kind of content.</para>
82 <para>Also, users of “text based” browsers such as
83 <command>lynx</command> will already be accustomed to seeing inline
84 numbers for links. And various "man to html" applications, such as
85 the widely used <command><link xlink:href="http://users.actrix.gen.nz/michael/vhman2html.html">man2html</link></command> (<literal>VH-Man2html</literal>)
86 application, can automatically turn URLs into "real" HTML hyperlinks
87 in output. So leaving <parameter>man.endnotes.are.numbered</parameter>
88 at its default (non-zero) value ensures that no information is
89 lost in your man-page output. It just gets
93 <para>The handling of empty links is not affected by this
94 parameter. Empty links are handled simply by displaying their URLs
95 inline. Empty links are never auto-numbered.</para>
97 <para>If you disable endnotes numbering, you should probably also set
98 <parameter>man.font.links</parameter> to an empty value (to
99 disable font formatting for links.</para>
102 <refsection><info><title>Related Parameters</title></info>
103 <para><parameter>man.endnotes.list.enabled</parameter>,
104 <parameter>man.font.links</parameter></para>