thx to Andrew Phillips for pointing this out. the output for -help needs some formatting, since the [tabbed] distances are inconsitent btwn the parameters and their corresponding descriptions. below is an example from a linux build [2000.11.15.08 mozilla trunk] --i assume this is also an issue on win32, but cannot verify presently due to bug 26761. this is cosmetic. but if we could tighten up on the whitespace and make the wording pithier, that would ameliorate things here. ./mozilla -help <-- snipped out startup stuff --> Usage: ./mozilla-bin [ options ... ] [URL] where options include: -height <value> Set height of startup window to <value>. -h or -help Print this message. -installer Start with 4.x migration window. -width <value> Set width of startup window to <value>. -v or -version Print ./mozilla-bin version. -CreateProfile <profile> Create and start with <profile>. -P <profile> Start with <profile>. -ProfileWizard Start with profile wizard. -ProfileManager Start with profile manager. -SelectProfile Start with profile selection dialog. -splash Enable splash screen. -compose <url> Start with messenger compose. -edit <url> Start with editor. -mail Start with mail. -chrome <url> Start with browser. -addressbook Start with the addressbook. -chat Start with an IRC chat client -jsconsole Start with Javascript Console -news Start with news.

forgot to add: there appears to be a fixed number a tabs btwn the parameters and their descriptions.

Copying Steve Rudman.

Yes, their position is decided by the defines HELP_SPACER_1 and HELP_SPACER_2 which are set to "\t" and "\t\t". Would it perhaps be better to use just a few spaces? With tabs a lot of screenspace is lost. I can volunteer to fix this if you guys have more important things to worry about. Right now I'm adding a help text for -remote anyway, so I'm in this part of the code right now.

#define HELP_SPACER_2 "\t\t" +#define HELP_SPACER_3 "\t\t\t" :-( almost perfect. Can you fix this so they line up? [i suspect there's a tab in the file...]

How about this: What if we change the first TAB to 2 spaces instead, and add another tab to the descriptions that need it? The whitespace on the left isn't doing any good, and is better used between the options and their descriptions. Since we are removing stuff from the left side we can still keep well inside the 80 column limit too. Using this we could easily get help output that would look like this: Usage: ./mozilla-bin [ options ... ] [URL] where options include: -height <value> Set height of startup window to <value>. -h or -help Print this message. -installer Start with 4.x migration window. -width <value> Set width of startup window to <value>. -v or -version Print ./mozilla-bin version. -CreateProfile <profile> Create and start with <profile>. -P <profile> Start with <profile>. -ProfileWizard Start with profile wizard. -ProfileManager Start with profile manager. -SelectProfile Start with profile selection dialog. -splash Enable splash screen. -compose <url> Start with messenger compose. -edit <url> Start with editor. -mail Start with mail. -chrome <url> Start with browser. -addressbook Start with the addressbook. -chat Start with an IRC chat client -jsconsole Start with Javascript Console -news Start with news. [Lets hope that will come out the way I typed it in this textwindow] If this sound insteresting to you I can provide a patch which does this.

andre, that looks good!

Yes two spaces makes sense to me, but let's quickly compare w/ other silly apps. <offtopic context="application/x-others"> wget uses two spaces: Usage: wget [OPTION]... [URL]... Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. Startup: -V, --version display the version of Wget and exit. -h, --help print this help. -b, --background go to background after startup. -e, --execute=COMMAND execute a `.wgetrc' command. Logging and input file: -o, --output-file=FILE log messages to FILE. -a, --append-output=FILE append messages to FILE. -d, --debug print debug output. -q, --quiet quiet (no output). -v, --verbose be verbose (this is the default). Actually, it also groups output. We should consider that. pico uses "\t", gmake uses " ". bash-2.03$ gzip --help gzip 1.2.4 (18 Aug 93) usage: gzip [-cdfhlLnNrtvV19] [-S suffix] [file ...] -c --stdout write on standard output, keep original files unchanged ... -r --recursive operate recursively on directories -S .suf --suffix .suf use suffix .suf on compressed files -t --test test compressed file integrity " " with bad allignment for suffix. wget avoided this by "Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too." Windows. dir /? uses " " but with a twist: [cmd.exe] dir /? Displays a list of files and subdirectories in a directory. DIR [drive:][path][filename] [/A[[:]attributes]] [/B] [/C] [/D] [/L] [/N] [/O[[:]sortorder]] [/P] [/Q] [/S] [/T[[:]timefield]] [/W] [/X] [/4] [drive:][path][filename] Specifies drive, directory, and/or files to list. /A Displays files with specified attributes. attributes D Directories R Read-only files H Hidden files A Files ready for archiving ... /B Uses bare format (no heading information or summary). /C Display the thousand separator in file sizes. This is the default. Use /-C to disable display of separator. Here, params are on lower lines and help for a switch can have multiple lines. D:\CVS\sbh\mozilla>edit /? MS-DOS Editor Version 2.0.026 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corp 1995. EDIT [/B] [/H] [/R] [/S] [/<nnn>] [/?] [file(s)] /B - Forces monochrome mode. ... /<nnn> - Load binary file(s), wrapping lines to <nnn> characters wide. /? - Displays this help screen. The dash isn't needed. </offtopic> Now to your proposal. Overall, it's great. We might later consider segmenting the help, but since it's already kind of grouped that's just adding extra print statements. Please include: -chrome <url> Start with specified chrome. Let's be consistent: -jsconsole Start with Javascript Console* Always use a period at the end of a statement. or the other way. [3/4 of my examples use periods] Do you need someone to check your patches in when they're r+sr'd?

> Do you need someone to check your patches in when they're r+sr'd? Yes, I will be needing that. And thanks for your comments, they will be helpful when I create the patch. Expect a patch tomorrow.

Since Don has left, Vishy is taking his bugs in bulk, pending reassignment. thanks, Vishy

here's the -help output i get from 2000.12.11.12 [linux verif comm build]. for some reason [known?] my debug build from today doesn't display all the [mozilla] options... Usage: ./mozilla-bin [ options ... ] [URL] where options include: -height <value> Set height of startup window to <value>. -h or -help Print this message. -installer Start with 4.x migration window. -width <value> Set width of startup window to <value>. -v or -version Print ./mozilla-bin version. -CreateProfile <profile> Create and start with <profile>. -P <profile> Start with <profile>. -ProfileWizard Start with profile wizard. -ProfileManager Start with profile manager. -SelectProfile Start with profile selection dialog. -remote <command> Execute <command> in an already running Mozilla process. For more info, see: http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/x-remote.html -splash Enable splash screen. -compose <url> Start with messenger compose. -edit <url> Start with editor. -mail Start with mail. -chrome <url> Load the specified chrome. -addressbook Start with the addressbook. -jsconsole Start with Javascript Console -news Start with news. -aim Start with Instant Messenger

ooops: forgot to say that the above info was requested by verah... methinks she's also seeking the current -help output for win32 bits [blocked by bug 26761].

I learned from Bill Law that the Linux cmd. line options are identical to the ones for Windows, though there are a couple of additional ones for Windows (and he's going to let me know what they are RSN).

Windows also supports "-quiet" (same as -nosplash) and "-console" (dynamically creates a Windows console that will show debugging info messages while the program runs). BTW, check out the other bugs against this component. It seems -width and -height don't work (if that matters).

Netscape Nav triage team: this is not a Netscape beta stopper.

bill, did you want to take this? if not, feel free to reassign...

[sorry for the long delay with this patch] Below is a first stab at a patch to format the helptext correctly. This is the output I get for 'mozilla --help' (on Linux) with this patch applied: Usage: ./mozilla-bin [ options ... ] [URL] Options: -height <value> Set height of startup window to <value>. -h or -help Print this message. -installer Start with 4.x migration window. -width <value> Set width of startup window to <value>. -v or -version Print ./mozilla-bin version. -CreateProfile <profile> Create <profile>. -P <profile> Start with <profile>. -ProfileWizard Start with profile wizard. -ProfileManager Start with profile manager. -SelectProfile Start with profile selection dialog. -remote <command> Execute <command> in an already running Mozilla process. For more info, see: http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/x-remote.html -splash Enable splash screen. -compose <url> Start with messenger compose. -edit <url> Start with editor. -mail Start with mail. -chrome <url> Load the specified chrome. -addressbook Start with the addressbook. -jsconsole Start with Javascript Console -news Start with news. The URL can't be aligned with the rest of the descriptions without crossing the 80-column barrier. As you can see, the descriptions for '-mail' and '-news' are not aligned correctly. The reason for this is that these command line switches are shorter than 6 characters, and would therefore require four tabs after them to get their descriptions aliged with the other ones. All of the options before '-compose <url>' are printed from the DumpHelp() function in nsAppRunner.cpp. The rest of them (like '-mail', '-news' and '-edit <url>') are printed in this piece of code from DumpArbitraryHelp() in nsAppRunner.cpp: if ((const char *)helpText) { printf("%s%s\n",HELP_SPACER_2,(const char *)helpText); } This makes it harder to align them individually like I did in nsAppRunner.cpp. My patch changes HELP_SPACER_2 to HELP_SPACER_3, which was necessary since much whitespace has been removed from the left side. But in order to get '-mail' and '-news' (and other short command line switches that might be added) aligned correctly we need to check if the command line switch is longer than 6 characters. Pseudo code: if "Command line switch is smaller than 6 chars": printf("%s%s\n",HELP_SPACER_4,(const char *)helpText); else: printf("%s%s\n",HELP_SPACER_3,(const char *)helpText); This is of course easy to add to my patch, but the problem is that I don't know how I can access the string that holds the command line switch. Can I access it in nsAppRunner.cpp just like I can access helpText? Some grepping revealed that the description for -news is set on mailnews/news/src/nsNntpService.cpp:1519: CMDLINEHANDLER3_IMPL(nsNntpService,"-news","general.startup.news","Start with news.",NS_NEWSSTARTUPHANDLER_CONTRACTID,"News Cmd Line Handler", PR_FALSE,"", PR_TRUE) But how do I access the '-news' string in nsAppRunner.cpp? [Sorry for the babbling]

Marking nsbeta1- bugs as future to get off the radar

I fixed this issue in bug: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26761 Please don't check in the patch above because its obsolete.

(In reply to comment #22) > I fixed this issue in bug 26761 > Please don't check in the patch above because its obsolete. so what is left to be done in this bug - nothing/