Hello Michael!

01 Feb 21, Michael Dukelsky wrote to Kai Richter:

 KR>> The line breaks for longer descriptions are looking like a line
 KR>> seperator "blank" line on the left side of the screen.

 MD> I see no such effects. Is your window width less than 80?

No. The "blank" is space to format the helpfile:

 /r=N days             <- Subscribe & rescan mails for the last N days
%RESCAN                <- Rescan (send all messages from) the area
%RESCAN            <- Rescan the areas matching the pattern
%RESCAN  N             <- Rescan the last N messages from the area
%RESCAN  N days        <- Rescan messages for the last N days
%RESCAN                      <- Rescan the areas subscribed below in the same
                                message to areafix
%PAUSE                       <- Suspend receiving echomail preserving the
> this empty space above        subscription
%RESUME                      <- Resume receiving echomail after the PAUSE
%COMPRESS                    <- Ask for the list of compression algorithms

Our brain is trained to identify differences first. The reflex fokus will be the empty looking line in the wall of text and would bound to the rescan line first. The look with sections or small block seperation would be

 /r=N days             <- Subscribe & rescan mails for the last N days

%RESCAN                <- Rescan (send all messages from) the area
%RESCAN            <- Rescan the areas matching the pattern
%RESCAN  N             <- Rescan the last N messages from the area
%RESCAN  N days        <- Rescan messages for the last N days
%RESCAN                      <- Rescan the areas subscribed below in the same
                                message to areafix
%PAUSE                       <- Suspend receiving echomail preserving the
                                subscription
%RESUME                      <- Resume receiving echomail after the PAUSE
%COMPRESS                    <- Ask for the list of compression algorithms

 KR>> How about empty lines to seperate the keywords into blocks or
 KR>> sections?

Example above.

 KR>> A first section for "Basic Commands" and then more complex
 KR>> "advanced" commands?

 MD> "Advanced areafix" has a special meaning, so using the word "advanced"
 MD> here may lead to some confusion.

Understood. Then basic and more. Or detailed... ;-)

 MD> Besides that, the help is already long and I wouldn't like to make it
 MD> longer.

I would not count empty lines for "longer". For my overall areafix usage of the last years my basic commands are help, list, avail, rescan area, +area and -area.

If those fill the first lines of the helpfile then the basics are on the first page and i think scrolling down the long file would not be neccessary for most users.

Regards

Kai

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.4.7