[MPlayer-DOCS] CVS: main/help help_mp-en.h,1.177,1.178

[The Wanderer]

Reimar Döffinger wrote:

> Hi, On Fri, Jul 29, 2005 at 10:42:27PM -0400, The Wanderer wrote:
> 
>> In theory that hinting would be accomplished by the use of the word
>>  "try", i.e. indicating that this is not a guaranteed fix - but you
>> know what they say about theory vs. practice. I don't really like
>> the current form, and for that matter I don't think it actually
>> accomplishes what you're trying to do, but I'm not sure how to make
>> the hint as explicit as it would need to be without being a lot
>> clunkier (and perhaps more verbose) than is really appropriate.
> 
> Just remove the "Also" if you want, it is fine with me (and might be
> less confusing). I don't have any really good idea either.
> 
> Although being more verbose in this case shouldn't be a problem since
> it will be a fatal error.

This holds true up to a limit (I don't think anyone wants to see, say, a
60-line spew from a single source even in such a case as this), but if
we follow your suggestion below I think the message could easily
overflow that ill-defined limit.

> If we decide to go that way we should collect the possible reasons
> for this message. One other I can thing of is missing codecs if I
> remember correctly.

That doesn't sound like a bad solution to me, although if we do it I
think - for reasons mentioned above - that a better approach would be to
collect and explain the list of reasons somewhere in the *ML
documentation and replace the "Also try" line with something to the
effect of "See <path to file in docs> for possible reasons and/or
solutions.".

If we go forward with this (which would require that people who, unlike
me, actually know the code identify the various possible reasons for the
error), I'll be willing to collect and collate the explanations into a
reasonably coherent patch. If such contributions do not arise, I'll just
remove the "Also", as an inadequate alternative.

Think I should post a "possible reasons for this message?" to -dev-eng,
or are the people there who are likely to speak up also subscribed to
-docs?

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

A government exists to serve its citizens, not to control them.