The commands in this family are completely independent of the topic interface, caching mechanism, etc.
The filename interface is accessed principally via the
extended command woman-find-file, which is available
without any configuration at all (provided WoMan is installed and
loaded or set up to autoload). This command can be used to browse
any accessible man file, regardless of its filename or location.
If the file is compressed then automatic file decompression must
already be turned on (e.g., see the
‘Help->Options’ submenu)—it is
turned on automatically only by the woman topic
interface.
Once WoMan is loaded (or if specially set up), various
additional commands in this family are available. In a dired
buffer, the command woman-dired-find-file allows the
file on the same line as point to be formatted and browsed by
WoMan. It is bound to the key W in the dired mode map
and added to the dired major mode menu. It may also be bound to
w, unless this key is bound by another library, which
it is by dired-x, for example. Because it is quite
likely that other libraries will extend the capabilities of such
a commonly used mode as dired, the precise key bindings added by
WoMan to the dired mode map are controlled by the user option
woman-dired-keys.
When a tar (Tape ARchive) file is visited in Emacs, it is
opened in tar mode, which parses the tar file and shows a
dired-like view of its contents. The WoMan command
woman-tar-extract-file allows the file on the same
line as point to be formatted and browsed by WoMan. It is bound
to the key w in the tar mode map and added to the tar
major mode menu.
The command woman-reformat-last-file, which is
bound to the key R in WoMan mode and available on the
major mode menu, reformats the last file formatted by WoMan. This
may occasionally be useful if formatting parameters, such as the
fill column, are changed, or perhaps if the buffer is somehow
corrupted.
The command woman-decode-buffer can be used to
decode and browse the current buffer if it is visiting a man
file, although it is primarily used internally by WoMan.