ROTFL(1)

NAME
rotfl - regular old text formatting language

SYNOPSIS
rotfl [-h|--help] [-p|--parse] [-r|--print] [-v|--version] <filename>

DESCRIPTION
rotfl is a simple text formatting program. It is designed for those that are in need of a formatting system, but do not want to take the time to learn one of the more complicated programs. It is therefore designed with simplicity in mind, but still contains some advanced features. By default, all rotfl files should be given the extension .rot. rotfl will first search the current directory for the file exactly as named on the command line. If this fails, it will search all directories specified in the ROT_PATH environment variable (see below). Failing this, it will append the .rot extension to the given filename and try the whole search procedure again.

OPTIONS

-h  Displays the rotfl help screen. It lists the valid command line options and a short description of each.

-p  Checks to see if the input file is correct. The file is completely parsed and checked, but the only output is from warnings and errors. If the file is syntatically correct, a message is displayed at the end.

-r  Prints out the entire formatted output without any breaks. This is good for piping to lpr (or whatever print software you use).

-v  Displays the rotfl version and terminates imme-gee-ately (Agent Smith style).

LONG OPTIONS

--help
    Same as -h.

--parse
    Same as -p.

--print
    Same as -r.

--version
    Same as -v.

PROMPT OPTIONS
The rotfl prompt is what is displayed at the bottom of the screen between records, or between each screenful of text (in the case of a really long record). There are various keys that you can hit to do things at this prompt. Here is a listing of those keys and what functions they perform.

n   Goes to the next screen or record (depending on what the prompt says).

q   Quits rotfl immediately.

t   Goes to the table of contents. From there, you can select a record to skip to. If you just hit enter, rotfl will continue with the current record. Records in the table of contents are displayed in the order that they appear in the file.

FORMATTING TAGS
rotfl works by reading in a regular text file that contains special tags. When one of these tags are encountered within the file, the text that follows it is formatted accordingly. There are limitations to these tags. There can only be one tag per line, and it must occur at the very beginning of the line. Any text found betweem the start of the line and the first tag is disregarded. Also, any text that does not have special formatting tags is printed out exactly as it appears in the input file.

.[# Indicates a one line comment.

.[c Center-justifies the text on the current line.

.[l Indicates that the text on the current line is the element of a list, and will be indented three spaces from the previous level of indentation.

.[o Prints a line of text with a row of dashes immediately above it.

.[r Right-justifies the text on the current line.

.[u Underlines the text on the current line with a row of dashes.

.[A Specifies the author of the current record. This tag is placed within the header section of the current record.

.[D Specifies the date that the current record was added to the file. This tag is placed within the header section of the current record.

.[E Specifies the email address of the author. This tag is placed within the header section and is not required. Please note that this tag is not currently displayed.

.[H Specifies the opening of the header section. This section must be placed at the very beginning of the record, and contains information about the record itself. Records cannot be nested, and must be terminated by usine the close record tag.

.]H The close header tag.

.[I Indents the text on the current line by 12 spaces.

.[L Specifies the beginning of a list. Lists can be nested, and each nested list will be indented three spaces from the previous list. The user can also specify which character is to appear at the beginning of each list item ("marker"). This is done by placing a space and then the desired marker character after the open list tag. If no marker is chosen, the default is an "o". The marker character is local to the current list, so each list can have its own marker.

.]L The close list tag.

.[M Specifies the date that the current record was last modified. This tag is placed within the header section of the current record, and is not required.

.[O Prints a line of text with a row of equals signs immediately above it.

.[R Specifies the opening of the record. This is one document's worth of stuff. The record holds the header section as well as the actual text itself. There can be several records in one file. rotfl will pause between each record in the file and display a prompt indicating how many records there are and what number the current record is.

.]R The close record tag.

.[T Specifies the title of the current record. This tag is placed within the header section of the current record. The title is required.

.[U Underlines the text on the current line with a row of equals signs.

.[V Specifies the version of rotfl that the document was designed for. This tag has now gained importance with the development of numbered lists. Documents designed for versions >= 0.6.1 will use numbered lists, while older versions will keep their previous behavior.

ENVIRONMENT

ROT_PATH
    If ROT_PATH is set, its value is used as the path to search for the rotfl files. Please note that the name of this variable has changed! It used to be called ROTPATH, but has been renamed for compatibility with future environment variables.

ROT_NOWARN
    If set, rotfl will not generate a warning log in /tmp and will not complain about warnings upon shutdown. Consider this a way to keep rotfl mostly quiet.

BUGS
See the bug listing in the TODO file, which should have come with your distribution of rotfl. If you find a bug that is not listed in that file, please contact the author immediately so it can be resolved.

AUTHOR
Chris Lumens <chris@bangmoney.org>