Re: Again?: Mouse in console

[Mark Farquaad <markfarquaad@gmail.com>]

Hi Eric,


On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 15:17:08 -0600, eric
<eric-list-openbsd-misc@catastrophe.net> wrote:

> > Because I feel it's too difficult to find out how, in what form,
> > in what order, etc. etc.
> 
> man 1 patch
> man 1 cvs

That's exactly one of the points.
This is good for source code devs, but for people who would
like to contribute to the docuemtation there should be more
possibilities. My OpenBSD box is currently just for testing
purposes and that for good reasons (me being a newbie), 
so it's not even connected to the internet.
My internet computer is windows, because that's what I
was unfortunate enough to learn first. 
Still, if there were more possibilities, I could have submitted
an updated packages list. This was not possible because...
well you know. And that's one of my points.
And this is not just about *stupid* windows users, think
about it, if contributing is made more flexible, a lot more
people could contribute, maybe from their offices if they
have no work, and maybe they only have windows or some
other OS without CVS or "man patch" there.

> 
> > I got the strong impression he DOES NOT HAVE THE TIME to look at
> > contributions because he is ALONE.
> 
> Nick rocks!

Oh, I'm sure he does! But he's just one (or 1.5) man.
And I'm sure he's too humble to ask for a change in 
documentation genaration that would give him more
manpower / hands. After all, he has to get along with
the rest of the devs who despise working on such
meger things such as the FAQ or documentation.

> So fire up your latex skills and get working on it. No one is stopping you.

Yes, I wanted to learn latex a long time ago already.
It's just in the time I learn that, I can't contribute and
neither can anyone else who doesn't use latex, cvs
and openbsd on the machine he usually works on.
And that I feel is a disadvantage for OpenBSD. I think
a documentatin page should give clear and easy instructions
on how to contribute right on the first page (or somewhere
not too far away from that).

> For me, man pages work well the way they are. If they didn't, I would put
> them into a book format.

Oh, that's impossible.
You can list them one after the other, perhaps in alphabetical
order, but you can never take advantage of the structures a 
book gives with chapters etc. in man pages.
The biggest disadvantage of man pages for documentation
(especially for newbies) is:
You practically already have to know the answer, you must
know which command is in question, you might just not
be sure of some arguements or similar.
With chapters you can actually name the solutions, the
names of commands and files needed to achive things, you
don't already have to know them from previous UNIX or even 
OpenBSD experience and usage.

Greetings,
Mark