asciidoctor: fix `synopsis` rendering

From: Johannes Schindelin <[email protected]>

Since 76880f0510c (doc: git-clone: apply new documentation formatting guidelines, 2024-03-29), the synopsis of git clone's manual page is rendered differently than before; Its parent commit did the same for git init.

The result looks quite nice. When rendered with AsciiDoc, that is. When rendered using AsciiDoctor, the result is quite unpleasant to my eye, reading something like this:

	SYNOPSIS

	 git clone
	  [
	 --template=
	 <template-directory>]
		  [
	 -l
	 ] [
	 -s
	 ] [
	 --no-hardlinks
	 ] [
	 -q
	 ] [
	[... continuing like this ...]

Even on the Git home page, where AsciiDoctor's default stylesheet is not used, this change results in some unpleasant rendering where not only the font is changed for the <code> sections of the synopsis, but padding and a different background color make the visual impression quite uneven: compare https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone/2.45.0 to
https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone/2.44.0.

To fix this, let's apply the method recommended by AsciiDoctor in
https://docs.asciidoctor.org/asciidoctor/latest/html-backend/default-stylesheet/#customize-docinfo
to partially override AsciiDoctor's default style sheet so that the <code> sections of the synopsis are no longer each rendered on their own, individual lines.

This fixes https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/5063.

---
asciidoctor: fix synopsis rendering

This was reported in https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/5063
and has been fixed in Git for Windows already (in
https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/pull/5064, because Git for Windows uses AsciiDoctor to render the HTML help pages).

A related fix for https://git-scm.com/docs/ (where AsciiDoctor is used, too) was submitted as part of
https://github.com/git/git-scm.com/pull/1855.

This patch is based on ja/doc-markup-updates, but also applies cleanly to the default branch.

Published-As: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/releases/tag/pr-git-1749%2Fdscho%2Ffix-synopses-rendering-with-asciidoctor-v1
Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git pr-git-1749/dscho/fix-synopses-rendering-with-asciidoctor-v1
Pull-Request: https://github.com/git/git/pull/1749

 Documentation/Makefile     | 1 +
 Documentation/docinfo.html | 5 +++++
 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/docinfo.html

index 3f2383a12c7..78e407e4bd1 100644
@@ -202,6 +202,7 @@ ASCIIDOC_DOCBOOK = docbook5
 ASCIIDOC_EXTRA += -acompat-mode -atabsize=8
 ASCIIDOC_EXTRA += -I. -rasciidoctor-extensions
 ASCIIDOC_EXTRA += -alitdd='&\#x2d;&\#x2d;'
+ASCIIDOC_EXTRA += -adocinfo=shared
 ASCIIDOC_DEPS = asciidoctor-extensions.rb GIT-ASCIIDOCFLAGS
 DBLATEX_COMMON =
 XMLTO_EXTRA += --skip-validation

new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..fb3560eb92b
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+<style>
+pre>code {
+   display: inline;
+}
+</style>

base-commit: 76880f0510c6be9f6385f2d43dcfcba4eca9ccbc

gitgitgadget

"Johannes Schindelin via GitGitGadget" <[email protected]>

Hmph, this may probably depend on the version of asciidoctor, but I am getting quite different output. It looks very similar to what is shown at https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone/2.45.0.

Even more puzzling, with or without this patch applied, I do not see any difference in the rendered output of samples I used, which were "clone", which has the changes from 76880f0510c and "add", which hasn't been broken by the series.

 $ make -C Documentation USE_ASCIIDOCTOR=YesPlease git-{clone,add}.{html,1}
 $ man -l Documentation/git-clone.1
 $ lynx Documentation/git-clone.html
 $ man -l Documentation/git-add.1
 $ lynx Documentation/git-add.html

The rendered result is bad in the same way with or without this patch applied, and "git clone" manual page is simply incorrect by mangling a handful of command line options. A recent bug report in the thread that contains

https://lore.kernel.org/git/[email protected]/

gives us more details.

With Jean-Noël Avila's {empty} patch applied, would this patch be still necessary?

I am wondering if the reason why "git clone" page needs this patch while others do not may have something to do with the mistaken triggering of "generalized roles" feature (whatever it is). Even though I dislike that we have to resort to the {empty} hack, if the misrendered block display you are fixing with this patch is due to the "generalized roles" problem, fixing the latter would also be the right fix for your problem.

Thanks.

The answer is no. I managed to reproduce the problem your patch fixes locally, applied Jean-Noël's patch which corrected the mark-up to avoid losing text in the [square brackets], but the problem still reproduced. It really seems that the monospaced text that are used in the SYNOPSIS section are rendered with display:block.

I am not sure if forcing any <code> that appears as a (direct or indirect) descendant of <pre> with custom css is specific enough, but that certainly covers the breakage we see on the page.

So the difference I observed between git-clone.html and say git-add.html is purely coming from use of monospaced in SYNOPSIS, and not because the unintended triggering of a feature by [text]more text that Jean-Noël's patch fixes. With or without that fix, the css tweak is still needed (it may be overly generic and may require us to tighten the selector later, but we can worry about it when somebody finds an actual breakage).

It is unfortunate that all .html files ought to be generated in this project (in other words, nobody writes HTML by hand), but asciidoc(tor) insists that docinfo for html backend must be stored in a file whose extension is .html, which caused a "huh?" Ramsay reported earlier.

Will queue. Thanks.

From: Johannes Schindelin <[email protected]>

Since 76880f0510c (doc: git-clone: apply new documentation formatting guidelines, 2024-03-29), the synopsis of git clone's manual page is rendered differently than before; Its parent commit did the same for git init.

The result looks quite nice. When rendered with AsciiDoc, that is. When rendered using AsciiDoctor and displayed in a graphical web browser such as Firefox, Chrome, Edge, etc, the result is quite unpleasant to my eye, reading something like this:

	SYNOPSIS

	 git clone
	  [
	 --template=
	 <template-directory>]
		  [
	 -l
	 ] [
	 -s
	 ] [
	 --no-hardlinks
	 ] [
	 -q
	 ] [
	[... continuing like this ...]

The reason is that AsciiDoctor's default style sheet contains this (see
https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor/blob/854923b15533/src/stylesheets/asciidoctor.css#L519-L521
for context):

	pre > code {
	  display: block;
	}

It is this display: block that forces the parts that are enclosed in <code> tags (such as the git clone or the --template= part) to be rendered on their own line.

Side note: This seems not to affect console web browsers like lynx or w3m, most likely because most style sheet directions cannot be respected in text terminals and therefore they seem to punt on style sheets altogether.

To fix this, let's apply the method recommended by AsciiDoctor in
https://docs.asciidoctor.org/asciidoctor/latest/html-backend/default-stylesheet/#customize-docinfo
to partially override AsciiDoctor's default style sheet so that the <code> sections of the synopsis are no longer each rendered on their own, individual lines.

This fixes https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/5063.

Even on the Git home page, where AsciiDoctor's default stylesheet is _not_ used, this change resulted in some unpleasant rendering where not only the font is changed for the <code> sections of the synopsis, but padding and a different background color make the visual impression quite uneven. This has been addressed in the meantime, via
https://github.com/git/git-scm.com/commit/a492d0565512.

---
asciidoctor: fix synopsis rendering

This was reported in https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/5063
and has been fixed in Git for Windows already (in
https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/pull/5064, because Git for Windows uses AsciiDoctor to render the HTML help pages).

A related fix for https://git-scm.com/docs/ (where AsciiDoctor is used, too) was merged as part of https://github.com/git/git-scm.com/pull/1855.

This patch is based on ja/doc-markup-updates, but also applies cleanly to the default branch.

Changes since v1:

* Clarified the commit message to motivate better why this patch is required.
* Exempted the docinfo.html file in .gitignore from being mistaken for an untrackable file.

Published-As: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/releases/tag/pr-git-1749%2Fdscho%2Ffix-synopses-rendering-with-asciidoctor-v2
Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git pr-git-1749/dscho/fix-synopses-rendering-with-asciidoctor-v2
Pull-Request: https://github.com/git/git/pull/1749

Range-diff vs v1:

1: ee3ee00a199 ! 1: 41522706456 asciidoctor: fix synopsis rendering
@@ Commit message
git init.

The result looks quite nice. When rendered with AsciiDoc, that is. When
- rendered using AsciiDoctor, the result is quite unpleasant to my eye,
+ rendered using AsciiDoctor and displayed in a graphical web browser such
+ as Firefox, Chrome, Edge, etc, the result is quite unpleasant to my eye,
reading something like this:

SYNOPSIS
@@ Commit message
] [
[... continuing like this ...]

- Even on the Git home page, where AsciiDoctor's default stylesheet is not
- used, this change results in some unpleasant rendering where not only
- the font is changed for the <code> sections of the synopsis, but
- padding and a different background color make the visual impression
- quite uneven: compare https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone/2.45.0 to
- https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone/2.44.0.
+ The reason is that AsciiDoctor's default style sheet contains this (see
+ https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor/blob/854923b15533/src/stylesheets/asciidoctor.css#L519-L521
+ for context):
+
+ pre > code {
+ display: block;
+ }
+
+ It is this display: block that forces the parts that are enclosed in
+ <code> tags (such as the git clone or the --template= part) to be
+ rendered on their own line.
+
+ Side note: This seems not to affect console web browsers like lynx or
+ w3m, most likely because most style sheet directions cannot be
+ respected in text terminals and therefore they seem to punt on style
+ sheets altogether.

To fix this, let's apply the method recommended by AsciiDoctor in
https://docs.asciidoctor.org/asciidoctor/latest/html-backend/default-stylesheet/#customize-docinfo
@@ Commit message

This fixes https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/5063.

+ Even on the Git home page, where AsciiDoctor's default stylesheet is
+ _not_ used, this change resulted in some unpleasant rendering where not
+ only the font is changed for the <code> sections of the synopsis, but
+ padding and a different background color make the visual impression
+ quite uneven. This has been addressed in the meantime, via
+ https://github.com/git/git-scm.com/commit/a492d0565512.
+

+ ## Documentation/.gitignore ##
+@@
+ *.xml
+ *.html
++!/docinfo.html
+ *.[1-8]
+ *.made
+ *.texi
+
## Documentation/Makefile ##
@@ Documentation/Makefile: ASCIIDOC_DOCBOOK = docbook5
ASCIIDOC_EXTRA += -acompat-mode -atabsize=8

 Documentation/.gitignore   | 1 +
 Documentation/Makefile     | 1 +
 Documentation/docinfo.html | 5 +++++
 3 files changed, 7 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/docinfo.html

index a48448de32f..d11567fbbe7 100644
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 *.xml
 *.html
+!/docinfo.html
 *.[1-8]
 *.made
 *.texi

index 3f2383a12c7..78e407e4bd1 100644
@@ -202,6 +202,7 @@ ASCIIDOC_DOCBOOK = docbook5
 ASCIIDOC_EXTRA += -acompat-mode -atabsize=8
 ASCIIDOC_EXTRA += -I. -rasciidoctor-extensions
 ASCIIDOC_EXTRA += -alitdd='&\#x2d;&\#x2d;'
+ASCIIDOC_EXTRA += -adocinfo=shared
 ASCIIDOC_DEPS = asciidoctor-extensions.rb GIT-ASCIIDOCFLAGS
 DBLATEX_COMMON =
 XMLTO_EXTRA += --skip-validation

new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..fb3560eb92b
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+<style>
+pre>code {
+   display: inline;
+}
+</style>

base-commit: 76880f0510c6be9f6385f2d43dcfcba4eca9ccbc

gitgitgadget

"Johannes Schindelin via GitGitGadget" <[email protected]>

I think our mails crossed. You need something like this squashed in, or "make distclean" would make the tree dirty as Ramsay reported.

 Documentation/Makefile                          | 5 +++++
 Documentation/{docinfo.html => docinfo-html.in} | 0
 2 files changed, 5 insertions(+)
 rename Documentation/{docinfo.html => docinfo-html.in} (100%)

index 78e407e4bd..371d56eb5e 100644
@@ -209,6 +209,8 @@ XMLTO_EXTRA += --skip-validation
 XMLTO_EXTRA += -x manpage.xsl
 endif
 
+ASCIIDOC_DEPS += docinfo.html
+
 SHELL_PATH ?= $(SHELL)
 # Shell quote;
 SHELL_PATH_SQ = $(subst ','\'',$(SHELL_PATH))

@@ -337,6 +339,9 @@ clean:
 	$(RM) $(cmds_txt) $(mergetools_txt) *.made
 	$(RM) GIT-ASCIIDOCFLAGS
 
+docinfo.html: docinfo-html.in
+	$(QUIET_GEN)$(RM) $@ && cat $< >$@
+
 $(MAN_HTML): %.html : %.txt $(ASCIIDOC_DEPS)
 	$(QUIET_ASCIIDOC)$(TXT_TO_HTML) -d manpage -o $@ $<
 

similarity index 100%
rename from Documentation/docinfo.html
rename to Documentation/docinfo-html.in

2.46.0-rc1-48-g0900f1888e

And I needed to undo the .gitignore change between v1 and v2 to match (otherwise ci/lib.sh notices that docinfo.html is an "unignored build artifact" and complains).

An updated SQUASH??? fixup looks like this.

Thanks.

 Documentation/.gitignore                        | 1 -
 Documentation/Makefile                          | 5 +++++
 Documentation/{docinfo.html => docinfo-html.in} | 0
 3 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 rename Documentation/{docinfo.html => docinfo-html.in} (100%)

index d11567fbbe..a48448de32 100644
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 *.xml
 *.html
-!/docinfo.html
 *.[1-8]
 *.made
 *.texi

index 78e407e4bd..371d56eb5e 100644
@@ -209,6 +209,8 @@ XMLTO_EXTRA += --skip-validation
 XMLTO_EXTRA += -x manpage.xsl
 endif
 
+ASCIIDOC_DEPS += docinfo.html
+
 SHELL_PATH ?= $(SHELL)
 # Shell quote;
 SHELL_PATH_SQ = $(subst ','\'',$(SHELL_PATH))

@@ -337,6 +339,9 @@ clean:
 	$(RM) $(cmds_txt) $(mergetools_txt) *.made
 	$(RM) GIT-ASCIIDOCFLAGS
 
+docinfo.html: docinfo-html.in
+	$(QUIET_GEN)$(RM) $@ && cat $< >$@
+
 $(MAN_HTML): %.html : %.txt $(ASCIIDOC_DEPS)
 	$(QUIET_ASCIIDOC)$(TXT_TO_HTML) -d manpage -o $@ $<
 

similarity index 100%
rename from Documentation/docinfo.html
rename to Documentation/docinfo-html.in

2.46.0-rc1-52-g816ffef0a1

Hi Junio,

Consider that we leave the door open for future enhancements (like, lose the conditional compilation and instead make it an empty file when AsciiDoc and not asciidoctor is in use).

No, because I am not interested in anything more elaborate a few days before tagging -rc2. If this is not meant for the upcoming release, then I am all ears (and eyes), but otherwise, let's just do the simplest and the most obvious thing to unbreak users for the upcoming release and leave a more elaborate engineering to next cycle.

Jean-Noël is planning to undo the overly elaborate mark-up and that may eliminate the need to work around "<code> in <pre> is made into a block element" behaviour of default asciidoctor style in the first place, so the longer term plan should take that into account as well.

Thanks.