On Feb 12, 2018, at 4:36 PM, Richard Hipp <d...@sqlite.org> wrote: > > On 2/12/18, Warren Young <war...@etr-usa.com> wrote: >> The ?VERSION? parameters to some commands are underdocumented for lack of >> space in “fossil help” output. > ... >> >> Then we can say something like this in the fossil help output: >> >> "The VERSION argument can take many forms, all documented >> at https://fossil-scm.org/names” > > I would prefer to create a documentation page that is built into the > Fossil binary, so that (1) it is useful when off-line and (2) to avoid > unnecessary traffic to the website.
I considered that before posting, but I've observed that most (all?) fossil help pages fit onto a single screen with modern terminal window heights. If you keep your terminal windows at 64 lines high — near my average, probably — an elinks dump of the current page takes 4 screenfuls. So, either we end up with an uncommonly long page — and reignites the old $PAGER battle — or someone needs to do a whole lot of prose tightening. > There is precedent for this in the /wiki_rules and /md_rules pages. That makes me wonder what the prefix for such pages would be. (Yes, plural: all common parameters should have a help page to factor out repeated material.) Some ideas: 1. It’s already case-sensitive, so give different output for “fossil help version” and “fossil help VERSION”. “fossil help -a” should list both “version” and “VERSION”. 2. Continue with the Tclish optional-parameter syntax: accept “fossil help ?version?”, and list “?version?” in “fossil help -a” output. There’s the awkwardness of the possible conflict with shell globbing here, but it can be escaped if need be. Command abbreviation allows “fossil he \?v”. 3. Option 3 sucks. Don’t do option 3. :) (“param_” prefix.) I’m not sure which of options 1 and 2 are quicker for me to type. It’s probably roughly a wash. _______________________________________________ fossil-users mailing list fossil-users@lists.fossil-scm.org http://lists.fossil-scm.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fossil-users
