Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 22:56:56 -0500 (EST) From: Scott Emerson Longley <emerson@WPI.EDU> To: Nikolas Britton <freebsd@nbritton.org> Cc: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Time to shut down this list? Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0412232246210.11364-100000@ccc1.wpi.edu> In-Reply-To: <41CB5560.3090102@nbritton.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Thu, 23 Dec 2004, Nikolas Britton wrote: > > > Speaking of "help" I have always though this sould at least be an > > alise to man (or "man man", or "man %foo")... but what I really want a > > clone of the MSDOS 6.xx Help system of the same name, when you typed > > in help with no args. it would load a "hypertext" curses program that > > listed all the commands (like "whatis") and then you could select a > > command for detail info about it. anyways... in the DOS world you > > always type'd "help, "help foo", or "foo /?" for help so for most > > people new to unix and freebsd whatis and man are unknow to them. > > > I may have a simple solution to this: create a new man page named > "help", in this man page is a brief (newbie oriented) one page guide on > how to use the man pages and how to find commands to use (whatis / > apropos, btw who came up with that name? I could not remember it if my > life depended on it). this man page would then be aliased as "help". > what do yea think? IMO, that's a great idea. Actually, OpenBSD does it, so it might be a useful example. ( http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=help ) Not having a "help" command was a frustration to me a few years back when I had just started fooling with Unices, so I would like to see the idea catch on for the sake of all those who are in that position now. -Scott Longley
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.LNX.4.44.0412232246210.11364-100000>