[PATCH] Improve help usability

[Goffredo Baroncelli]

On Wednesday 24 August 2005 03:21, Martin Pool wrote:
> On 8/24/05, Goffredo Baroncelli <kreijack at alice.it> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > the patch below shows the /short/ help when bzr is invoked without parameter. Moreover
> > if bzr is invoked with the 'help' command ( or -h or --help ) the full help is displayed.
> > I think that this behaviour is more user frendly.

> I'm not so sure about showing all commands from 'bzr help'; people had
> a bad reaction to the enormous number of commands listed by arch and
> I'd like the main help screen to be more of a how-to than a reference.

Ok, but it is possible to have as alias of 'bzr help commands'  an form like
'bzr help -l' ( or --long) ?  It is more short; for examples

- 'bzr' and 'bzr help' show the short help
- 'bzr help commands' and 'bzr help -l' show the full help

patch ( against is below )



*** modified file 'bzrlib/commands.py'
--- bzrlib/commands.py
+++ bzrlib/commands.py
@@ -1564,12 +1564,15 @@
 class cmd_help(Command):
     """Show help on a command or other topic.

-    For a list of all available commands, say 'bzr help commands'."""
+    For a list of all available commands, say 'bzr help commands' or
+    'bzr help -l'."""
+    takes_options = ['long']
     takes_args = ['topic?']
     aliases = ['?']

-    def run(self, topic=None):
+    def run(self, long=None, topic=None):
         import help
+        if long and topic==None: topic="commands"
         help.help(topic)





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