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Julian Foad wrote:
> (To everyone, but Karl in particular I think:)
>
> May I re-format the source lines of the built-in help text such that
> output lines are not broken over two source lines? The present layout
> is so awkward that I feel it is stifling maintenance of that text.
>
> Here is an example of the before:
>
> " 2. Exports a clean directory tree from the working copy specified "
> "by\n"
> " PATH1, at revision REV if it is given, otherwise at WORKING, "
> "into\n"
> " PATH2. If PATH2 is omitted, the last component of the "
> "PATH1 is used\n"
> " for the local directory name. If REV is not specified,"
> " all local\n"
> " changes will be preserved. Files not under version "
> "control will\n"
> " not be copied.\n"
> "\n"
> " If specified, PEGREV determines in which revision the target is "
> "first\n"
> " looked up.\n"),
>
> and after:
>
> " 2. Exports a clean directory tree from the working copy specified
> by\n"
> " PATH1, at revision REV if it is given, otherwise at WORKING,
> into\n"
> " PATH2. If PATH2 is omitted, the last component of the PATH1 is
> used\n"
> " for the local directory name. If REV is not specified, all local\n"
> " changes will be preserved. Files not under version control will\n"
> " not be copied.\n"
> "\n"
> " If specified, PEGREV determines in which revision the target is
> first\n"
> " looked up.\n"),
>
> The re-formatting creates quite a few source lines over 80 columns wide;
> I hope you will agree that an exception to our rule will be worthwhile
> in this case. I have taken a couple of measures to make a few columns
> more room so that not so many lines go over 80 columns.
>
> Obviously keeping the output text below 80 columns is important: it will
> be seen by users in a wide range of contexts and we do not expect the
> users to know how to (or to have to) control the width or wrapping or
> scrolling behaviour of the displays that they may be using, especially
> when the task is viewing help text. However, developers can reasonably
> be expected to cope with and work around what might be an inconvenience
> to some of them, some of the time.
Doing this does, of course, mean that as soon as you put the text into a
line-wrapping mailer, it goes wonky, but overall, I agree with Julian's
point about stifling maintenance.
I have a slight extension of the proposal:
If we limit our output text to 76 characters of width, and decide to
permit long multiline text blocks to be totally *non-indented*, then we
will avoid the need for the extra line breaks in the source which are
the cause of the awkwardness, whilst still keeping lines within 80
characters:
'"' + 76 characters + '\n"' = 80 characters.
Max.
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Received on Sat Nov 26 20:34:40 2005