Re: Improved help from minibuffer prompts

[Kim F. Storm]

Stefan Reichör <address@hidden> writes:

> > Here is a new idea.  We can develop a convention for delimiting, in
> > the doc string, the help about each argument.  Then the help facility
> > for entering an argument could look thru the doc string for the part
> > that refers to the current argument.
> 
> * The convention for delimiting the doc strings would require a
>   rewrite of many docstrings.

IMO, that is a lot of work for only a minor benefit (arg specific
help vs. full doc string).

> * Look at the following (randomly) choosen functions and their documentations:

> Consider the find-dired example. When asked for dir or args
> I would like to get the whole docstring, because it covers the things
> I need to know.
> 
> I am not sure about the benefit of stripping the information down for
> every argument.

I agree.  

IMO, the full doc string is often MORE useful than getting info on one
arg, so why limit it.

Here is another idea, enhancing on Richard's idea:

Show the full doc string, but highlight occurrences of the upper case
PARAM name in the doc string -- then the user will be able to quickly
locate the relevant information and focus on that...

-- 
Kim F. Storm <address@hidden> http://www.cua.dk