Re: [PATCH/RFC] Make help behaviour more consistent

From: "Junio C Hamano" <redacted>
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 7:02 PM

Matthieu Moy [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Kevin Bracey [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Two significant usability flaws here:
 - If using man, "man git" to side-step "git help" is obvious. But 
if
   trying to use help.format=web, how to get the root html page? My
   technique was "git help XXX" and click the "git(1) suite" link at 
the
   bottom. "git help git" is non-obvious and apparently undocumented
   (it's not mentioned by "git", "git help", or "git help help"...).

Can't this be solved by adding something like

  See 'git help git' for general help about Git.

to the output of "git help"? I think the fact that "git help" 
provides a
small amount of output (typically: fits on one screen) is a nice 
feature
that avoids scaring people too early with the actual doc.

That sounds like a good direction to go in.

My earlier attempt, and Junio's reply 
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/217352

It is tricky making sure that the message covers help for git, help's 
own help,
the guides, and the commands, all in one compact usage line, while also
covering the -h and --help options (which may not be known to new Git
users on Windows, though probably obvious to Linux/Unix users).

Philip