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Bug#382477: marked as done (Sect 6.5.3.2: rather fix the tool than condense a description)

Your message dated Sat, 11 Nov 2006 22:27:48 +0100
with message-id <20061111212746.GC23943@kheops.homeunix.org>
and subject line #382477 is not a bug, it's a DevRef (and lintian) feature
has caused the attached Bug report to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what I am
talking about this indicates a serious mail system misconfiguration
somewhere.  Please contact me immediately.)

Debian bug tracking system administrator
(administrator, Debian Bugs database)
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: lintian
Version: 1.23.22

Hello,

On the mailman package I received this lintian warning:

W: mailman: too-long-extended-description-in-templates mailman/queue_files_present
N:
N:   Some debconf interfaces cannot deal very well with descriptions of
N:   more than about 20 lines, so try to keep the extended description
N:   below this limit.
N:
N:   Refer to Developers Reference, section 6.5.3.2 for details.
N:

I've checked that description, and it's quite long but also very
informational to the admin. I could condense it, but I feel that
throwing away useful information because of some anonymous tool cannot
deal with it is not right: we should fix that bug instead of setting an
arbitrary 20-line limit on descriptions.

The description remains vague as where exactly the problem originates.
I'm not sure what it is that imposes the number "20" and why our "26" is
too much.


Thanks for considering.

Thijs

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--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
The original intent in the DevRef when suggesting that extended
descriptions in debconf templates should not exceed 20 lines was
technical:

In the most common situation (80x25 screen with the dialog interface)
, debconf displays such templates in a scrollable window but
experience shows that many users do not notice that the window can be
scrolled....and therefore miss the extra information.

However, a stronger argument is that, by experience, too long screens
are just not read...so, indeed, the information is just noise that
isn't really used.

This is why the DevRef recommends not exceeding 20 lines. So, the
DevRef is right telling so and lintian is right warning maintainers
about this.

If you really think that you have too much information that you *must*
exceed 20 lines and take the risk of your users not reading your
debconf template, then use a lintian override... But, really, please
consider whether debconf is really the place to write down huge
documentation for your users.

As a consequence, I close this bug report because I see nothing to do
in the DevRef about this.

--- End Message ---
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