#1083197 most: no color when used as man page pager

Package:
most
Source:
most
Description:
Pager program similar to more and less
Submitter:
Cooper
Date:
2025-02-21 10:33:04 UTC
Severity:
normal
Tags:
#1083197#5
Date:
2024-10-03 00:34:28 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

   * What led up to the situation?
   When using man page as a pager, no color is outputted. This is different
   from the Stable bookworm version of debian.

   * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
     ineffective)?
   most works fine with color as a pager out of the box. By piping other simple
   terminal commands that provide color into most, color is outputted. When piping
   man pages in, or by setting PAGER=most, there is no standard coloring like there
   is in deb 12. I've tested this on multiple devices, and so have others, and the
   result is the same. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/1cizn23/colored_man_pages_using_most_pager/

   This may also be an issue with the current version of man, more testing would be
   needed to verify.


   * What was the outcome of this action?
   Color is possible, but doesn't work when acting as the man page Pager.

   * What outcome did you expect instead?
   Colored variables and easier legibility. The same result as using most as a pager
   on bookworm.

#1083197#10
Date:
2025-02-21 10:32:52 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

I have identified the cause of the issue with most not displaying color in man pages. It appears to be related to a recent update in groff, which does not send color characters unless certain environment variables are set. Such as MANROFFOPT=-c.

For more details (where I found the cause and solution for the issue), you can refer to this GitHub issue: https://github.com/jedsoft/most/issues/9#issuecomment-2558517596.