Syslinux - Mar 2007 - Opinion wanted on F-key help in the simple menu system

Hi all,

3.40 is getting close to feature complete, with the one thing I really 
want to add is support for F-key help in the simple menu system.

However, I'm not 100% sure how I want to do it.  This may seem trivial, 
but it actually matters.

One option is to have the F-key help clear the screen and display text, 
similar to the way it would work at the plain boot prompt.

Another option is to have the F-key help draw a window over the existing 
display and display the text there.

The first option would make it easier to share help files with the 
command line prompt, but that may not really be that interesting.  It 
would also allow for changing the background (in vesamenu) if one would 
want to.  The second option I suspect would look better.

Opinions?

	-hpa

So could we change the graphic and just have no text (I need to
display Thai language
help)?  So they hit F1 and get the new graphic (which can have the
help text in it), then hit
some other key to go back to the main menu and graphic that was behind
that when we started.

On 3/6/07, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com>
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> 3.40 is getting close to feature complete, with the one thing I really
> want to add is support for F-key help in the simple menu system.
>
> However, I'm not 100% sure how I want to do it.  This may seem trivial,
> but it actually matters.
>
> One option is to have the F-key help clear the screen and display text,
> similar to the way it would work at the plain boot prompt.
>
> Another option is to have the F-key help draw a window over the existing
> display and display the text there.
>
> The first option would make it easier to share help files with the
> command line prompt, but that may not really be that interesting.  It
> would also allow for changing the background (in vesamenu) if one would
> want to.  The second option I suspect would look better.
>
> Opinions?
>
> 	-hpa
>
> _______________________________________________
> SYSLINUX mailing list
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> Unsubscribe or set options at:
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>

BuraphaLinux Server wrote:
> So could we change the graphic and just have no text (I need to
> display Thai language
> help)?  So they hit F1 and get the new graphic (which can have the
> help text in it), then hit
> some other key to go back to the main menu and graphic that was behind
> that when we started.
That would be trivial with the first option (it would, of course, not 
work with serial console, though.)  It could be made possible with the 
second option too, although there one would have to worry more about the 
exact semantics.

	-hpa

The first option would be consistent with the way the plain boot system
works.
The second would be a 'fresher and more hip' but harder way of doing it.

I like the first option but is it possible to have both ways?

1) F key to display a backwards compatible help message in a text box.
2) An option to clear the display before displaying the message.
3) Option to display a help graphic instead of help text.

You are doing a great job on this.

Keith

On 3/5/07, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com>
wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> 3.40 is getting close to feature complete, with the one thing I really
> want to add is support for F-key help in the simple menu system.
>
> However, I'm not 100% sure how I want to do it.  This may seem trivial,
> but it actually matters.
>
> One option is to have the F-key help clear the screen and display text,
> similar to the way it would work at the plain boot prompt.
>
> Another option is to have the F-key help draw a window over the existing
> display and display the text there.
>
> The first option would make it easier to share help files with the
> command line prompt, but that may not really be that interesting.  It
> would also allow for changing the background (in vesamenu) if one would
> want to.  The second option I suspect would look better.
>
> Opinions?
>
>         -hpa
>
> _______________________________________________
> SYSLINUX mailing list
> Submissions to SYSLINUX at zytor.com
> Unsubscribe or set options at:
> http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
> Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.
>
>

On 3/5/07, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com>
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> 3.40 is getting close to feature complete, with the one thing I really
> want to add is support for F-key help in the simple menu system.
>
> However, I'm not 100% sure how I want to do it.  This may seem trivial,
> but it actually matters.
>
> One option is to have the F-key help clear the screen and display text,
> similar to the way it would work at the plain boot prompt.
>
> Another option is to have the F-key help draw a window over the existing
> display and display the text there.
>
> The first option would make it easier to share help files with the
> command line prompt, but that may not really be that interesting.  It
> would also allow for changing the background (in vesamenu) if one would
> want to.  The second option I suspect would look better.
>
> Opinions?
>
>         -hpa
Just my two cents on this.  It strikes me that they could be kept
seperate.  Support showing a new menu on top of the old one, which
would be useful for submenus anyway, and have a system to allow
binding of those keys to any menu item (which could potentially
include hidden items if the user didn't want to show the "help"
item.)
 A way to have unusable menu items could make it possible to add help
text.  Perhaps something like a MENU DISABLE option or even just a
seperate MENU TEXT entry.  (I started to say that these options
shouldn't be selectable in the menu with the cursor, but it struck me
that it's a great way to make it possible to scroll through a lot of
help text smoothly one line at a time.)

That's just my two cents anyway.  I'm a user, not a developer, so take
it as you will.

On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 09:42:41PM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> One option is to have the F-key help clear the screen and display
> text, similar to the way it would work at the plain boot prompt.
I prefer that option because I spend a lot of my time working with
machines that have serial consoles ONLY --- no vga.
> Another option is to have the F-key help draw a window over the
> existing display and display the text there.
The reality is that for serial console these sorts of things are
fragile and break.