[RFC] Concise vs comprehensive help - do we need both?

[Wouter van Heyst]

On Sun, Feb 01, 2009 at 07:55:01AM +1000, Ian Clatworthy wrote:

...

> >  > * "bzr help xxx" and "bzr xxx -h" give comprehensive help
> > 
> > The default should be short help.  Even fairly new users will often be
> > looking for something very simple ("I know there's a 'verbose' log
> > format, but it's not 'verbose' and it's not 'full'...").  Having to
> > wade through several pages to find the single word you need is enough
> > to break your train of thought.
> 
> Well, the usage and option information is at the top. IMO, the bigger UI
> issue is not knowing whether the pipe the output into less/more or not.
> If -h is just the usage, then you can be reasonably certain that using
> a pager isn't needed. That's certainly good I think: I hate it when the
> more useful information scrolls off the screen.

Agreed.

Wouter van Heyst