Chapter 13. Editor Configuration

Adjusting your text editor configuration can make working on document files quicker and easier, and help documents conform to FDP guidelines.

13.1. Vim

Install from editors/vim, or editors/vim-console, then follow the configuration instructions in Configuration. More advanced users can use a proper linter like Ale which can also act as a Vim Language Server Protocol client.

13.1.1. Use

Manual page writers can use the following keyboard shortcuts to reformat:

Press P to reformat paragraphs or text that has been selected in Visual mode.
Press T to replace groups of eight spaces with a tab.

A linter named Vale has been introduced to check grammatical and cosmetic errors on the documents. Vale has support for various editors and IDEs.

Vale may already be installed as a dependency of the textproc/docproj meta-port. If not, install textproc/vale with:

$ pkg install vale

Install Ale to integrate into editors/vim, for using textproc/vale.

% mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/vendor/start
% git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dense-analysis/ale.git ~/.vim/pack/vendor/start/ale

Users who are using plugin managers for editors/vim do not need the above and should follow the instructions of that plugin manager to install Ale.

At this moment due to a bug in Vale it is necessary to copy the Vale configuration to the home directory. Considering the repository was cloned into ~/doc copy as following:

% cp -R ~/doc/.vale* ~/

13.1.2. Configuration

Edit ~/.vimrc, adding these lines to the end of the file:

~/.vimrc

if has("autocmd")
  au BufNewFile,BufRead *.adoc call Set_ADOC()
  au BufNewFile,BufRead *.[1-9] call Set_MAN()
endif " has(autocmd)

function Set_Highlights()
  "match ExtraWhitespace /^\s* \s*\|\s\+$/
  return 0
endfunction " Set_Highlights_Adoc()

function Set_Highlights_MAN()
  highlight default link OverLength ErrorMsg
  match OverLength /\%71v.\+/
  return 0
endfunction " Set_Highlights_MAN()

function ShowSpecial()
  setlocal list listchars=tab:>>,trail:*,eol:$
  hi def link nontext ErrorMsg
  return 0
endfunction " ShowSpecial()

function Set_COMMON()
  setlocal number
  setlocal shiftwidth=2
  setlocal tabstop=8
  setlocal softtabstop=2
  setlocal formatprg="fmt -p"
  setlocal autoindent
  setlocal smartindent
  call ShowSpecial()
  call Set_Highlights()
  return 0
endfunction " Set_COMMON()

function Set_ADOC()
  setlocal syntax=asciidoc
  setlocal filetype=asciidoc
  call Set_COMMON()
  return 0
endfunction " Set_ADOC()

function Set_MAN()
  setlocal syntax=man
  setlocal filetype=man
  setlocal textwidth=70
  " Rewrap paragraphs
  noremap P gqj
  " Replace spaces with tabs
  noremap T :s/        /\t/<CR>
  call Set_COMMON()
  call Set_Highlights_MAN()
  return 0
endfunction " Set_Man()

let g:ale_fixers = {
\   '*': ['remove_trailing_lines', 'trim_whitespace'],
\}
let g:ale_linters = {
\   'asciidoc': ['vale'],
\}
let g:ale_fix_on_save = 1

Above configuration will automatically remove trailing line, trailing space and multiple spaces which might display additional unwanted changes in git diff output. In such cases properly mention that in the commit log.

13.2. Emacs

Install from editors/emacs or editors/emacs-devel.

13.2.1. Validation

Emacs’s nxml-mode uses compact relax NG schemas for validating XML. A compact relax NG schema for FreeBSD’s extension to DocBook 5.0 is included in the documentation repository. To configure nxml-mode to validate using this schema, create ~/.emacs.d/schema/schemas.xml and add these lines to the file:

~/.emacs.d/schema/schemas.xml

<locatingRules xmlns="http://thaiopensource.com/ns/locating-rules/1.0">
  <documentElement localName="section" typeId="DocBook" />
  <documentElement localName="chapter" typeId="DocBook" />
  <documentElement localName="article" typeId="DocBook" />
  <documentElement localName="book" typeId="DocBook" />
  <typeId id="DocBook" uri="/usr/local/share/xml/docbook/5.0/rng/docbook.rnc" />
</locatingRules>

13.2.2. Automated Proofreading with Flycheck and Igor

The Flycheck package is available from Milkypostman’s Emacs Lisp Package Archive (MELPA). If MELPA is not already in Emacs’s packages-archives, it can be added by evaluating

(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "http://stable.melpa.org/packages/") t)

Add the line to Emacs’s initialization file (one of ~/.emacs, ~/.emacs.el, or ~.emacs.d/init.el) to make this change permanent.

To install Flycheck, evaluate

(package-install 'flycheck)

Create a Flycheck checker for textproc/igor by evaluating

(flycheck-define-checker igor
  "FreeBSD Documentation Project sanity checker.

See URLs https://www.freebsd.org/docproj/ and
http://www.freshports.org/textproc/igor/."
  :command ("igor" "-X" source-inplace)
  :error-parser flycheck-parse-checkstyle
  :modes (nxml-mode)
  :standard-input t)

  (add-to-list 'flycheck-checkers 'igor 'append)

Again, add these lines to Emacs’s initialization file to make the changes permanent.

13.2.3. FreeBSD Documentation Specific Settings

To apply settings specific to the FreeBSD documentation project, create .dir-locals.el in the root directory of the documentation repository and add these lines to the file:

;;; Directory Local Variables
;;; For more information see (info "(emacs) Directory Variables")

((nxml-mode
  (eval . (turn-on-auto-fill))
  (fill-column . 70)
  (eval . (require 'flycheck))
  (eval . (flycheck-mode 1))
  (flycheck-checker . igor)
  (eval . (add-to-list 'rng-schema-locating-files "~/.emacs.d/schema/schemas.xml"))))

13.3. nano

Install from editors/nano or editors/nano-devel.

13.3.1. Configuration

Currently there is no adoc/asciidoc syntax highlight file with nano distribution. So let’s create one from scratch and use an editor to create new file or add lines in the ~/.nanorc with these contents:

~/.nanorc

syntax "asciidoc" "\.(adoc|asc|asciidoc)$"
# main header
color red "^====+$"
# h1
color red "^==[[:space:]].*$"
color red "^----+$"
# h2
color magenta "^===[[:space:]].*$"
color magenta "^~~~~+$"
# h4
color green "^====[[:space:]].*$"
color green "^\^\^\^\^+$"
# h5
color brightblue "^=====[[:space:]].*$"
color brightblue "^\+\+\+\++$"
# attributes
color brightgreen ":.*:"
color brightred "\{[a-z0-9]*\}"
color red "\\\{[a-z0-9]*\}"
color red "\+\+\+\{[a-z0-9]*\}\+\+\+"
# Paragraph Title
color yellow "^\..*$"
# source
color magenta "^\[(source,.+|NOTE|TIP|IMPORTANT|WARNING|CAUTION)\]"
# Other markup
color yellow ".*[[:space:]]\+$"
color yellow "_[^_]+_"
color yellow "\*[^\*]+\*"
color yellow "\+[^\+]+\+"
color yellow "`[^`]+`"
color yellow "\^[^\^]+\^"
color yellow "~[^~]+~"
color yellow "'[^']+'"
color cyan "`{1,2}[^']+'{1,2}"
# bullets
color brightmagenta "^[[:space:]]*[\*\.-]{1,5}[[:space:]]"
# anchors
color brightwhite "\[\[.*\]\]"
color brightwhite "<<.*>>"
# trailing whitespace
color ,blue "[[:space:]]+$"
# multiples of eight spaces at the start a line
# (after zero or more tabs) should be a tab
color ,blue "^([TAB]*[ ]{8})+"
# tabs after spaces
color ,yellow "( )+TAB"
# highlight indents that have an odd number of spaces
color ,red "^(([ ]{2})+|(TAB+))*[ ]{1}[^ ]{1}"

Process the file to create embedded tabs:

% perl -i'' -pe 's/TAB/\t/g' ~/.nanorc

13.3.2. Use

Specify additional helpful options when running the editor:

% nano -AKipwz -T8 _index.adoc

Users of csh(1) can define an alias in ~/.cshrc to automate these options:

alias nano "nano -AKipwz -r 70 -T8"

After the alias is defined, the options will be added automatically:

% nano _index.adoc

Last modified on: June 19, 2023 by Danilo G. Baio

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