Help should fit in a 80 columns terminal

[Albert Astals Cid]

A Diumenge, 31 de gener de 2010, Alain Portal va escriure:
> Le samedi 30 janvier 2010 01:51:07, vous avez écrit :
> > On Friday 29 January 2010 4:59:34 pm Alain Portal wrote:
> > > Le samedi 23 janvier 2010 15:12:52, Alain Portal a écrit :
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > I saw that some help, provided by the --help option, could hold some
> > > > very long strings making its difficult to read, particularly in some
> > > > translation - french translation strings are often longer than
> > > > english one.
> > > >
> > > > As an example, you could see the output of "plasmoidviewer --help".
> > > >
> > > > So, I think the output of the --help option should fit in a 80
> > > > columns terminal, with of course some flexibility.
> > > > As the option description starts at column 29, strings should be less
> > > > than 51 characters.
> > > > And to help translators, it could be added a context string like:
> > > > "TRANSLATORS: this is the description of a command line option. If
> > > > your translation is longer than 50 characters, you are encouraged to
> > > > add breaklines every time you need."
> > > > This context should be added for every option description, even if
> > > > the english description is really short, and this could become a
> > > > general development rule.
> > > >
> > > > What do you think about this suggestion?
> > >
> > > Am I alone to be worry with this?
> >
> > No, Pino gave you some ideas and help.
> 
> ONE idea, and no help.

What did you expect? that developers find your particular problem to be their 
number one priority, stop doing everything they were doing and fix it? It 
seems probably noone thinks the problem is as serious as you think it is (not 
saying who is right)

> > So what's the problem?  We assume when someone posts
> > a question like yours to this mailing list that you are also
> > volunteering to do the work.  So just Do it, then post
> > your patch on reviewboard.kde.org.
> 
> Are you serious?
> I'm a translator, not a developer...
> I first posted this « problem » on the french translation list.
> I was told « Post on kde-18n-doc ».
> So, a new subscription needed...
> I subcribed and posted on kde-18n-doc list, where Albert said « For policy
> discussion kde-core-devel is preferred ».
> So, a new subscription needed... :-(
> I subcribed and posted and I was told I need to be a developper????

Again the problem is no developer seems to care about it enough to fix it, so 
the remaining options are:
 a) You fix it yourself (what Allen is suggesting)
 b) You convince someone to fix it
 c) It stays like it is

Sorry if you think this is a "crude" answer but reality this is.

Albert