Re: [Enhancement proposal]: printing the help message

On 05 September 2004, Thorsten Kampe said:
> * the "--version" and the "-h, --help" explanations are currently
> printed above all other options - although obviously they are the
> least useful for the user who just typed "foobar -h".
> 
> Proposal: print the above mentioned below all other options.

Good idea.  That seems to be the convention, so Optik should do it that
way.  Unfortunately, it might be tricky to implement because of the way
I did things.  I'll create a feature request and look into
it... someday.  ;-)

> * Print "section" names in UPPERCASE or in "Title Case" to let the
> user distinguish options more easily. This refers to "usage:",
> "description:", "options:" and "%OptionGroup options:"

I consider this to be developer preference, so it should be done by
subclassing one of the existing HelpFormatter subclasses
(IndentedHelpFormatter or TitledHelpFormatter) and overriding the
appropriate method (format_heading()?).  If you cannot easily do it that
way, then HelpFormatter needs refactoring.  If you can convince us with
clear examples that the default really needs changing, then I'll
consider it.

> * make an enhancement to use coloured output in help messages

Blecch.  Feel free to implement this yourself, but you'll only get it
into Optik over my dead body, *or* if I am flooded by people who really
really want this feature.  In my experience, "coloured output" ==
"illegible output"; disabling colour ls is one of the first things I do
when setting up a new Red Hat system, and it's one of the things I've
always hated about Red Hat.

If you can implement it with a custom HelpFormatter, case closed; if
HelpFormatter needs refactoring to support this level of customization,
let me know and we'll see what I can do.

        Greg

PS. ok, I've added that feature request:
  https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1023396&group_id=38019&atid=421100

-- 
Greg Ward <[email protected]>                         http://www.gerg.ca/
Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life.


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