From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Aug 6 16:34:24 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DBB87106564A for ; Mon, 6 Aug 2012 16:34:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from wonkity.com (wonkity.com [67.158.26.137]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97D3D8FC20 for ; Mon, 6 Aug 2012 16:34:24 +0000 (UTC) Received: from wonkity.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by wonkity.com (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id q76GYIxa074268; Mon, 6 Aug 2012 10:34:18 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from localhost (wblock@localhost) by wonkity.com (8.14.5/8.14.5/Submit) with ESMTP id q76GYIP0074265; Mon, 6 Aug 2012 10:34:18 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2012 10:34:18 -0600 (MDT) From: Warren Block To: Jeremy Chadwick In-Reply-To: <20120806160425.GA23270@icarus.home.lan> Message-ID: References: <20120806160425.GA23270@icarus.home.lan> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.7 (wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Mon, 06 Aug 2012 10:34:18 -0600 (MDT) Cc: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Questions about/issues with new OPTIONS framework X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:34:25 -0000 On Mon, 6 Aug 2012, Jeremy Chadwick wrote: > (Please keep me CC'd, as I'm not subscribed to the list) > > 2. ports/KNOBS is very explicit in stating, and even visually > demonstrating (using pipe symbols to delimit length maximums and so > on), the following: > > # - Knob description must be 45 characters or less > > Yet, a very good number of descriptions violate this (see the file for > yourself). I'm inclined to think the limit is to be extra friendly > towards 80-column terminals, but I'm still not sure. Is this > 45-character-limit untrue, or are numerous descriptions blatantly too > long? On the older version of dialog(1) included with 8.x, longer descriptions trigger a bug that messes up the displayed menu. As an example, try a 'make config' on security/tripwire. We should not limit the length of descriptions, many of which are already less than helpful to the user. I wrote a wrapper script for dialog(1) that addresses the length problem, truncating long descriptions on 8.x and showing them in full on 9.x. It also makes the menu take advantage of larger terminals, showing more of the descriptions and more lines: http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/dialogwrapper/ It makes no changes to ports or ports infrastructure. However, so far there has been very little feedback.