Re: [aspell] Announce: Aspell .30

[Kevin Atkinson]

On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Sudhakar Chandrasekharan wrote:

> Kevin Atkinson proclaimed:
> > On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Sudhakar Chandrasekharan wrote:
> > >  While updating I saw that the usage documentation in
> > > the various formats are written in a language that is not easily
> > > understandable.
> > Could you elaborate.
> 
> >From the "usage" section in the docs:
> 
>    --home-dir=«dir»
>           location for personal files
> 
>    -W,--ignore=«integer»
>           ignore words <= n chars
> 
>    --add|rem-email-quote=«char»
>           email quote characters
>                
>    --email-margin=«integer»
>           num chars that can appear before the quote char
> 
> 
> 
> etc.
> 
> A non-technical user trying to spell check a simple document will see the
> above tucked away in the documentation (I base my aspell man page on this
> section of the documentation).  And much of this is difficult to understand
> just by glancing at the usage section.  Even for me, a person who has an
> education in works in the software industry.

Also see sections 3.2, 3.3, 3.4....  Which explain how to use aspell for
various tasks.
> 
> IMO, a user is most interested in using aspell first.  Only after frequent
> usage does a user bother to read up further on the software (like
> customization, internals etc.).
> 
> > > Kevin,  if the command line options are decently baked at this point, I
> > > could try rewriting the usage documentation.
> > I don't plan on changing them but no promises.
> > 
> > Please do. However, if your rewrite has any formatting please either use
> > LyX or edit the TeX source trying to use the same formatting commands I
> > use throughout the document so I can easily reLyX it. 
> 
> I am planning to use LyX.  I will send you patches as and when I have them
> ready.

Ok thanks.

---
Kevin Atkinson
address@hidden
http://metalab.unc.edu/kevina/