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Re: [Monotone-devel] More descriptive help summary


From: Julio M. Merino Vidal
Subject: Re: [Monotone-devel] More descriptive help summary
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2007 14:05:56 +0200

On 09/04/2007, at 13:11, Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker wrote:

In message <address@hidden> on Mon, 9 Apr 2007 09:45:51 +0200, "Julio M. Merino Vidal" <address@hidden> said:

jmmv84> Or "remove" subcommands and make them regular commands
jmmv84> (e.g. "db-init" instead of "db init").

I disagree with that idea fdor aesthetic reasons.  That, or mtn should
be split in small programs, such as mtn-db-init.  I'm sure we don't
want that.

jmmv84> At the moment some categories such as db or automation contain
jmmv84> just a single command within them, which does a lot of things
jmmv84> on its own and hides information one more level deep down.

Yeah, you might think that, but on the positive side, it gives a
structure, such as all "db" commands being strictly about the
database.

jmmv84> An alternative could be to show no commands at all on the
jmmv84> default help, but only the categories with a little blurb of
jmmv84> what they are about.  Such as:
jmmv84>
jmmv84> [...options summary here...]
jmmv84>
jmmv84> Command categories:
jmmv84>
jmmv84>      automation  Commands for scripted execution
jmmv84>      db          Commands to manage the database
jmmv84>      ...
jmmv84>
jmmv84> Type "mtn help <category>" to show information on all commands
jmmv84> available in that category.

I *like* that thought.  I'd hate for the help immediately requiring a
pager, which often results in users going:

       OK, let's type 'mtn help' so I can see what I should do...
       Holy mother of *****, what the hell was that?  OK, I'll try
       'mtn help | less'...

FWIW, it already requires a pager.

I've seen some programs that automatically "page" long outputs, as if you had typed | less. For example, cogito. Quite useful for diffs, logs and long help screens. Of course, that behavior is disabled when the output is not a terminal (e.g. redirected to a file or to a real pager).

--
Julio M. Merino Vidal <address@hidden>






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