From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 566 invoked from network); 10 Sep 1999 15:27:12 -0000 Received: from sunsite.auc.dk (130.225.51.30) by ns1.primenet.com.au with SMTP; 10 Sep 1999 15:27:12 -0000 Received: (qmail 29157 invoked by alias); 10 Sep 1999 15:27:03 -0000 Mailing-List: contact zsh-workers-help@sunsite.auc.dk; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes X-Seq: 7769 Received: (qmail 29149 invoked from network); 10 Sep 1999 15:27:02 -0000 Message-ID: <37D92271.182ECD11@u.genie.co.uk> Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 16:23:29 +0100 From: Oliver Kiddle X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Andrej Borsenkow , ZSH workers mailing list Subject: Re: Size of select listing? References: <000401befad6$ad291a50$21c9ca95@mow.siemens.ru> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Andrej Borsenkow wrote: > patch TAB > > creates a select listing longer than screen size. At least, if I do it in a > directory with ~ 15 files. > > bor@itsrm2:~%> patch > --backup --reverse -i > --backup-if-mismatch --set-time -l > . . . > --quoting-style -e tmp/ > --reject-file -f xxxx/ > --remove-empty-files -g It doesn't so much relate to handling the screen size but, one area which I really don't like about the way _arguments and _long_options work is the way options are considered possible matches straight-away. I don't like the mixed file and option lists as above because 9 times out of 10 I don't care what the options to a particular command are and if I do, I'll have typed the minus already. The way I've always written compctls (and the way the compctl-examples are done), is that options are only completed after an initial minus has been typed and long options, only after an initial two minuses. I also think it is better if the minus signs are not displayed in the lists so as to save a bit more screen space - I don't think they add to the readability at all. In summary, I think that patch should list and complete file names only, patch - should complete options and should display them without the initial '-' and patch -- should list only the long options (unless we have filenames starting with '-') without displaying '--' before every option. This way of doing things would reduce the number of things which get listed. I'd write a patch for _arguments/_long_options for this but I suspect people might disagree with me and because they have both become quite complicated so it'd take me a while. Oliver Kiddle