make (almost) all links appear on only a single line, with no
unnecessary whitespace, using double quotes for attributes. this lets us
automatically convert them to markdown easily.
the few remaining links are extremely long link in a gnome module, we'll
come back to those at a later date.
we can't embed syntactic annotations of this kind in markdown code
blocks without yet another extension. replaceable is rare enough to make
this not much worth it, so we'll go with «thing» instead. the module
system already uses this format for its placeholder names in attrsOf
paths.
markdown can't represent the difference without another extension and
both the html manual and the manpage render them the same, so keeping the
distinction is not very useful on its own. with the distinction removed
we can automatically convert many options that use <code> tags to markdown.
the manpage remains unchanged, html manual does not render
differently (but class names on code tags do change from "code" to "literal").
the conversion procedure is simple:
- find all things that look like options, ie calls to either `mkOption`
or `lib.mkOption` that take an attrset. remember the attrset as the
option
- for all options, find a `description` attribute who's value is not a
call to `mdDoc` or `lib.mdDoc`
- textually convert the entire value of the attribute to MD with a few
simple regexes (the set from mdize-module.sh)
- if the change produced a change in the manual output, discard
- if the change kept the manual unchanged, add some text to the
description to make sure we've actually found an option. if the
manual changes this time, keep the converted description
this procedure converts 80% of nixos options to markdown. around 2000
options remain to be inspected, but most of those fail the "does not
change the manual output check": currently the MD conversion process
does not faithfully convert docbook tags like <code> and <package>, so
any option using such tags will not be converted at all.
It was never meant to be used for anything other than testing
and setting it globally can cause weird loops in GTK-based portals,
where the portal will end up waiting for itself until it times out.
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/135898
Or it can mess up fonts:
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/155291#issuecomment-1166199585
Having the option in NixOS makes it look like it is okay or even
desirable to enable, when in fact it is a hack that can subtly break apps.
Some apps allow opting into using portal-based APIs, e.g. for Firefox,
you can set `widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker` to `1` in about:config.
Otherwise, you can set the `GTK_USE_PORTAL` environment variable to 1
for individual apps.
People who really want it and aware of the downsides can just set
`environment.sessionVariables.GTK_USE_PORTAL = "1";` NixOS option
directly to set the environment variable globally.
More nixpkgs code such as `boot.initrd.systemd.emergencyAccess` defines
options that takes hashed passwords, so move the type definition from
modules/ into lib/.
The type definition itself stays unchanged.
`console.{font,keyMap}` may be a path or a string to a store path,
which should be added to initrd for `systemd-vconsole-setup` before
the prompt for the LUKS password.