From owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 13 20:23:02 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 82457FD5 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 2014 20:23:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: from wonkity.com (wonkity.com [67.158.26.137]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "wonkity.com", Issuer "wonkity.com" (not verified)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 350EC2A00 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 2014 20:23:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: from wonkity.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by wonkity.com (8.14.9/8.14.9) with ESMTP id s7DKN0Ki062426 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Wed, 13 Aug 2014 14:23:00 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from localhost (wblock@localhost) by wonkity.com (8.14.9/8.14.9/Submit) with ESMTP id s7DKN01n062423 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 2014 14:23:00 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 14:23:00 -0600 (MDT) From: Warren Block To: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org Subject: /etc/motd update Message-ID: User-Agent: Alpine 2.11 (BSF 23 2013-08-11) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.4.3 (wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Wed, 13 Aug 2014 14:23:00 -0600 (MDT) X-BeenThere: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1 Precedence: list List-Id: Documentation project List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 20:23:02 -0000 The existing /etc/motd breaks many of our document rules and has some weird language constructs. The current version in HEAD: http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/etc/motd?view=co Here is a rewrite. URLs are now the only thing on a line, instead of inline and hard to locate. No contractions are used. Odd phrases are rephrased: Here is the proposed new version and a diff: http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd.diff Making it clear that commands are to be typed without quotes is a little difficult. This file is plain text, so no out-of-band highlighting is available. ANSI colors or bold could be used, but the terminal is not guaranteed to be able to display them. The only really clear way would be to put commands on a separate line, indented. That takes up more space, maybe not a big deal. The other issue is whether we should mention the search box on the web page, which is not very effective at finding things. Comments and suggestions welcome.