Re: RFC: Better formatting for long descriptions
On Thu, Apr 16 2009, Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Apr 2009, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>
>> Do we really have nothing better to do than to impose
>> bureaucratic rules on what characters to use as bullet symbols in long
>> descriptions even if the user can tell that the character is a bullet?
>
> The user can tell, but scripts can't reliably.
Any script should be able to take the top 4 symbols currently
used, and be able to detect them. I think *, +, - and o cover most
packages, and the scripts in question can be readily expanded. All
kinds of markup languages already do something similar. (markdown,
Emacs org-mode, mediawiki, etc)
> Long descriptions are used in several places and some of these could
> render a better layout.
Functionally, just rendering the description as written would
suffice; the rest is aesthetics.
> A good layout is pleasing for users. So it
Pleasing is in the eye of the beholder, no?
> is not stupid bureaucracy but making our descriptions better readable
> (for instance on packages.d.o and other places).
I find the descriptions on packages.d.o just fine right now.
Having sad that, I would not be averse to specifying that leading
white space and *, +, and - would be acceptable as bullet marks (I
thought specifying which mark at which level was overspecification).
manoj
--
A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. --
Butler
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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