groff 1.24 release goals and gates

"G. Branden Robinson" <[email protected]> Sat, 15 Nov 2025 12:35:04 -0600
Newsgroups	gmane.comp.printing.groff.general
Message-ID	<20251115183504.bbuy4bxpncug43ht@illithid>
Hi folks,

I think groff 1.24.0.rc1 is finally coming into view.

Here are the still-open tickets depended on by Savannah #65099.

1.  document "install-font.bash" script (bug #58831, Need Info)
2.  @g@-ify our Texinfo manual (bug #66031, None)
3.  [mdoc] should remap monospaced font names on "dvi" (or "lbp")
    devices (bug #66126, Confirmed)
4.  NEWS: document gropdf changes from 2023 (bug #66452, None)
5.  [gropdf] document pdfmark-related features (bug #66453, Need Info)
6.  update stale references to troffcvt in groff documentation (bug
    #66888, Confirmed)
7.  [man,mdoc] recommend ISO 8601 date format (bug #66903, Confirmed)
8.  NEWS, MORE.STUFF: add/update pdfmark location (bug #67051, None)
9.  remove references to old FSF postal address (bug #67088, None)
10. [troff] specify whether invalid escape sequences are valid as
    delimiters (bug #67375, None)
11. MORE.STUFF: update URL, email contact for "gpresent" (bug #67504,
    None)
12. [troff] `pchar` request should resolve and report properties of
    character classes (bug #67617, In Progress)

Of these, only one (#12) is a C++ code change, and I have it operating
almost satisfactorily in my working copy; you can expect it in my next
push.[1]

Of the remainder, only one (#3) is a macro code change, and I'm prepared
to punt on it if it's too difficult.  (An initial crack at it didn't
come off well, because mdoc is complex and dealing with groups of fonts
that aren't in a family is a pain.)

The rest are all documentation changes which can be done up to the last
minute before final release.

If you have revisions to this list to propose, please speak up.

For insight into release procedures, please see:
https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/FOR-RELEASE

For a preview of the groff 1.24.0 release announcement, please see:
https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/ANNOUNCE

I'm looking forward to my first release as groff maintainer.

Regards,
Branden

[1] Here's a demonstration of the feature in interactive use.

$ ./build/test-groff -mja
/home/branden/src/GIT/groff/build/../tmac/ja.tmac: warning: font TR may lack coverage of Japanese script
.pchar \C'[CJKnormal]'
character class '[CJKnormal]'
  defined at: file name: "/home/branden/src/GIT/groff/build/../tmac/ja.tmac", line number: 44
  contains ranges: U+3041-U+3096 U+3096 U+30A0-U+30FF U+30FF U+4E00-U+9FFF U+9FFF
  contains nested classes: (none)
.pchar \[u3041]
special character 'u3041'
  is not translated
  does not have a macro
  special translation: 0
  hyphenation code: 0
  flags: 0 (none)
  asciify code: 0
  ASCII code: 0
  Unicode mapping: U+3041
  is found
  is transparently translatable
  is not translatable as input
  mode: normal

The feature may not quite be done yet because the correct character
flags aren't being reported for the U+3041 character ("HIRAGANA LETTER
SMALL A").  That might be because they aren't getting set correctly in
the first place, which means that the feature is fine and speaking the
truth; Dave Kemper has reported Savannah #67571 about a similar issue.
Maybe it's the same one.  We're banging on it, but if you like to help,
please join the discussion in that ticket.
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