On 09/04/2007, at 13:11, Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker wrote:
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Mon,
9 Apr 2007 09:45:51 +0200, "Julio M. Merino Vidal"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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