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Introduction

The original documentation for all Linux systems was a set of files collectively known as the "man pages" that formed a readily available manual describing the actions and options for each command. The command "man" followed by an optional section number and the name of the command for which information was desired brings up the "man page" for that command, allowing you to learn more about it.

Unfortunately in today's world, many of the man pages are so full of jargon that they seem incomprehensible to newcomers -- and even, at times, to long-time users of Linux. Still they are quite useful, especially for refreshing one's memory about details of a command not often used.

There's one major drawback, however: When you need to find a man page while at the command line, you must either open a second terminal window to issue the "man" command, or abort the action under way so that you can run "man" in the current window.

If, like many of us, you are using a terminal window from within your file manager (Nautilus, Dolphin, Thunar, etc.) or from a desktop launcher, there's an easy option. The purpose of this post is to show you how to use it, and how to install and configure a launcher that will make it even simpler to use.

This easy option is a program called "xman" that's installed by default with the X Window System. It does the same thing as the command "man" does from a terminal, but does so within its own window on the desktop, and includes a number of features to simplify its use. Since xman dates from the earliest days of the X system, it doesn't have all the eye candy of more recent desktop tools, and many of its actions are not at all intuitive, but despite this it's still one of the tools that I use daily. You may find it equally useful.

Running xman

To get started with xman, open a terminal window and type

xman

followed by the Enter key. You'll see this window appear in your display

xmanstart.png

xmanmain.png

Searching xman

xmanmenu.png

xmansearch.png

If you choose "Apropos" you will get a list of all the man pages related to your search word, with a brief description of each. You can then return to the "Search" dialog, enter the page name you found on the list, and view that page.

xmansections.png

Launchers

xman -notopbox -pagesize 829x814-0-6

Clicking that launcher brings xman up at the right-hand side of my monitor, scaled to display the full page width and occupying the full height of the display. You can change the "829x814" values as desired to change the size of the window, and the "-0-6" values to change its location. To determine these values, I first scaled the size and location manually, then used the handy utility

xwininfo

I then copied its result into the launcher's command line. The "-notopbox" option suppresses display of the top box.

Originally posted The Ubuntu Forums (ubuntuforums.org)

Xman (last edited 2012-07-18 11:08:43 by host86-130-25-119)