helptext upstream feedback

Fabian fabian.kreutz+google at starnet.fi
Fri Apr 3 03:45:41 CDT 2009


Great! Thank you.

To 4.: Why not refer directly to the difference:
"Unlike a centralized RCS, this operation is a local operation. See hg
push for means to actively distribute your changes."

To 5.: So what then? I'll be on vacation for two weeks. After that I
can go through all references in the english help texts, if you want.

Here comes the next batch:

6. Help text for manifest: first and second paragraph are redundant:
delete 1st.

7. help text for merge: Circular definition of "merge" via the word
"merge".
Suggestion: all changes of the other revision since last common
predecessor are applied to workdir.
Mention that the new commit has two parents.
"Changes" (i.e. editing a file) are allowed, but no hg add/rm/merge...

8. The targets of "see also"s are sometimes enclosed in double quotes,
sometimes single quotes.

9. Help for pull could refer (see also) to "paths" (concerning
default) and "incoming".
Further the pull happens to *THE* local repo.

10. Same for push and paths + outgoing.
Further, it does not "help to move", but is rather the one way to
actively move.*)
In the same paragraph a comma is missing and isn't it identical to a
pull even if the dest is not local?
"    This is the symmetrical operation for pull. It transfers the
changes\n"
"    from the current repository actively to a different one. If the
\n"
"    destination is local, this is identical to a pull in that
directory\n"
"    from the current one.\n"
The next paragraph could refer to --force
-r sends a revision, not a changeset

*) Sorry! I'm so particular about this, because people from
distributed RCSs (and those are a main target audience for the help
texts) need definite guidance and not something that implies that
you're supposed to do something else and this command only helps a
bit. Especially push and pull need to state exactly what they are used
for, rather than what they internally do.

11. help for resolve: I don't get it and thus never understand the
command.
I see that there has been discussion about this before in December.
http://www.nabble.com/hg-resolve-td20932378.html
BTW: The "usage" message is wrong, as it does not require a file.
So, does it recreate a conflict?

How about this?:
A changeset that created a conflict will be applied again to the
version of
a file, as it was before the merge/update. This will undo local
changes
to resolve the conflict manually (and re-create the conflict).

Maybe this stresses the usecase "after-conflict" too much, since it
can be
used "after-merge"? We could mention that as a clarification after
stating
the obvious use-case, along the lines (Actually you can use this
to...).
My german version:
    Änderungen, die einen Konflikt erzeugt haben, werden erneut auf
die
    Version einer Datei angewendet, wie sie vor der
konflikterzeugenden Aktion
    im Arbeitsverzeichnis vorlag. Dies macht manuelle Versuche, den
Konflikt
    zu lösen, rückgängig.

Finally you could mention that commit will refuse to work until all
files are marked as resolved.
As you can see in the above link, this is (also for me) a major point
of confusion and frustration.

Bye, Fabian



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