SYNOPSIS
--------
-'git help' [-a|--all|-i|--info|-w|--web] [COMMAND]
+'git help' [-a|--all|-i|--info|-m|--man|-w|--web] [COMMAND]
DESCRIPTION
-----------
If a git command is named, a manual page for that command is brought
up. The 'man' program is used by default for this purpose, but this
-can be overriden by other options.
+can be overridden by other options or configuration variables.
Note that 'git --help ...' is identical as 'git help ...' because the
former is internally converted into the latter.
-------
-a|--all::
Prints all the available commands on the standard output. This
- option superseeds any other option.
+ option supersedes any other option.
-i|--info::
- Use the 'info' program to display the manual page, instead of
- the 'man' program that is used by default.
+ Display manual page for the command in the 'info' format. The
+ 'info' program will be used for that purpose.
+
+-m|--man::
+ Display manual page for the command in the 'man' format. This
+ option may be used to override a value set in the
+ 'help.format' configuration variable.
++
+By default the 'man' program will be used to display the manual page,
+but the 'man.viewer' configuration variable may be used to choose
+other display programs (see below).
-w|--web::
- Use a web browser to display the HTML manual page, instead of
- the 'man' program that is used by default.
+ Display manual page for the command in the 'web' (HTML)
+ format. A web browser will be used for that purpose.
+
The web browser can be specified using the configuration variable
'help.browser', or 'web.browser' if the former is not set. If none of
-these config variables is set, the 'git-browse-help' script (called by
-'git-help') will pick a suitable default.
-+
-You can explicitly provide a full path to your prefered browser by
-setting the configuration variable 'browser.<tool>.path'. For example,
-you can configure the absolute path to firefox by setting
-'browser.firefox.path'. Otherwise, 'git-browse-help' assumes the tool
-is available in PATH.
-+
-Note that the script tries, as much as possible, to display the HTML
-page in a new tab on an already opened browser.
+these config variables is set, the 'git-web--browse' helper script
+(called by 'git-help') will pick a suitable default. See
+linkgit:git-web--browse[1] for more information about this.
+
+CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
+-----------------------
+
+help.format
+~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+If no command line option is passed, the 'help.format' configuration
+variable will be checked. The following values are supported for this
+variable; they make 'git-help' behave as their corresponding command
+line option:
+
+* "man" corresponds to '-m|--man',
+* "info" corresponds to '-i|--info',
+* "web" or "html" correspond to '-w|--web'.
+
+help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The 'help.browser', 'web.browser' and 'browser.<tool>.path' will also
+be checked if the 'web' format is chosen (either by command line
+option or configuration variable). See '-w|--web' in the OPTIONS
+section above and linkgit:git-web--browse[1].
+
+man.viewer
+~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The 'man.viewer' config variable will be checked if the 'man' format
+is chosen. The following values are currently supported:
+
+* "man": use the 'man' program as usual,
+* "woman": use 'emacsclient' to launch the "woman" mode in emacs
+(this only works starting with emacsclient versions 22),
+* "konqueror": use 'kfmclient' to open the man page in a new konqueror
+tab (see 'Note about konqueror' below).
+
+Values for other tools can be used if there is a corresponding
+'man.<tool>.cmd' configuration entry (see below).
+
+Multiple values may be given to the 'man.viewer' configuration
+variable. Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order
+listed in the configuration file.
+
+For example, this configuration:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+ [man]
+ viewer = konqueror
+ viewer = woman
+------------------------------------------------
+
+will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example if
+DISPLAY is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried.
+
+If everything fails the 'man' program will be tried anyway.
+
+man.<tool>.path
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by
+setting the configuration variable 'man.<tool>.path'. For example, you
+can configure the absolute path to konqueror by setting
+'man.konqueror.path'. Otherwise, 'git help' assumes the tool is
+available in PATH.
+
+man.<tool>.cmd
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+When the man viewer, specified by the 'man.viewer' configuration
+variables, is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding
+'man.<tool>.cmd' configuration variable will be looked up. If this
+variable exists then the specified tool will be treated as a custom
+command and a shell eval will be used to run the command with the man
+page passed as arguments.
+
+Note about konqueror
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+When 'konqueror' is specified in the 'man.viewer' configuration
+variable, we launch 'kfmclient' to try to open the man page on an
+already opened konqueror in a new tab if possible.
+
+For consistency, we also try such a trick if 'man.konqueror.path' is
+set to something like 'A_PATH_TO/konqueror'. That means we will try to
+launch 'A_PATH_TO/kfmclient' instead.
+
+If you really want to use 'konqueror', then you can use something like
+the following:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+ [man]
+ viewer = konq
+
+ [man "konq"]
+ cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror
+------------------------------------------------
+
+Note about git config --global
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Note that all these configuration variables should probably be set
+using the '--global' flag, for example like this:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ git config --global help.format web
+$ git config --global web.browser firefox
+------------------------------------------------
+
+as they are probably more user specific than repository specific.
+See linkgit:git-config[1] for more information about this.
Author
------
Documentation
-------------
-Initial documentation was part of the gitlink:git[7] man page.
+Initial documentation was part of the linkgit:git[7] man page.
Christian Couder <chriscool@tuxfamily.org> extracted and rewrote it a
little. Maintenance is done by the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
GIT
---
-Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite
+Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite