From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Fri May 31 05:12:45 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7B9F5A50 for ; Fri, 31 May 2013 05:12:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from wonkity.com (wonkity.com [67.158.26.137]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F5BE7A for ; Fri, 31 May 2013 05:12:45 +0000 (UTC) Received: from wonkity.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by wonkity.com (8.14.7/8.14.7) with ESMTP id r4V5Cil8069916; Thu, 30 May 2013 23:12:44 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from localhost (wblock@localhost) by wonkity.com (8.14.7/8.14.7/Submit) with ESMTP id r4V5Ci0u069913; Thu, 30 May 2013 23:12:44 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Date: Thu, 30 May 2013 23:12:44 -0600 (MDT) From: Warren Block To: Freddie Cash Subject: Re: shells/bash: Options slightly confusing In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <20130530132742.43455bba@bsd64.grem.de> <51A7413D.9010104@marino.st> <20130530150955.2916170a@bsd64.grem.de> <20130530105753.722eec41@scorpio> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.4.3 (wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Thu, 30 May 2013 23:12:44 -0600 (MDT) Cc: freebsd-ports X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 31 May 2013 05:12:45 -0000 On Thu, 30 May 2013, Freddie Cash wrote: > On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 7:57 AM, Jerry wrote: > >> I agree whole heartily. Unfortunately, all too many ports have >> options that all cryptic in nature. There really needs to be better >> documentation as to what the options actually do. Perhaps having an >> additional file in each port named "OPTDESC", or whatever that would >> list each available option for the port and exactly what it did would >> prove useful. It certainly would not be a burden as over 90% of the >> ports that have either none or just one or two options. Besides, if >> some maintainer created a port with 40 or 50 configurable options, then >> they certainly can take the time to fully document them. >> >> Isn't long options description support enabled in the ports tree now? Or > was that only available via Warren Block's dialogwrapper? Or maybe via > dialog4ports? > > I remember reading something about this a few months back, where the bottom > of the screen would show long descriptions of what the option would do, or > a separate help screen would be available. Or maybe that was just a > proof-of-concept? dialogwrapper did it. Still does, except the new dialog4ports supplants dialogwrapper. Unfortunately, dialog4ports does not show long option descriptions. I consider long options descriptions that are shown by default to be very important. I think dialog4ports has a way to show a help file on user request, but to me, that is a solution to a different problem.