Package: pstoedit Version: 3.33-15 Severity: minor Hello,
I see useability as one of the criteria to estimate the program quality. The rough estimate of it can be done by comparing the expectations of DIN-EN-ISO-9241 with the user model of some program. In this context, pstoedit badly fails. Why? I, as a dumb user in this case, expect this tool to convert a ps file into an editable format. How do I get when I read the -help output or the manpage? Not anything that shows me how exactly to use this tool. The -help output should tell you something like: pstoedit <switch> <format> inputfile outputfile Instead, it says "No backend specified". Fine. What should I do with THAT MESSAGE? Question a) what is a backend, and b) how to specify it? For a), I can guess that my output format is meant. But how to specify? There is only a HUGE list of options and it is hard to see which one is to specify the backend. Now I say "pstoedit | grep backend" and what happens? Not what you expect, it puts the help message to STDERR thouh -h is specified. WTF? We continue: pstoedit 2>&1 | grep backend No backend specified <some options about backends but not saying how to specify it> So what now? Let's read the manpage. Looking for "backend" and found... nothing useful! Rereading the SYNOPSIS. Oh, fine, it is called "format" this time. What is the different between backend and format? Oh, well, it somehow becomes clear after reading two pages of other junk. Or not so clear? It says -f format:options so I assume it means -f format:ps or so. Or not? A quick test shows that "-f<format>:<format-options>" is menat in the docs where format is the one from the list of backends. Ok. But is that userfriendly? Most certainly not. So, please, consider following things: - keep the language/terminology consistent - add example line to the usage, not only to the manpage - sort the options according to their priority (in user's eyes), don't throw most important options among rarely used ones. Consider doing something like: pstoedit: version 3.33 / DLL interface 108 (build Sep 3 2005 - release build) : Copyright (C) 1993 - 2003 Wolfgang Glunz USAGE: pstoedit -f "<format>[:options]" <advanced opts> input-file [output-file] Options: -f <string> : target format identifier. Use -help to see available formats. -page <int> : extract a specific page: 0 means all pages - scale <double> : scale factor applied to the output Advanced options: <the long list of the less relevant options> Last point: the descriptoin of the "-bo" option in the list of options is odd. Please describe what it actually does, not only some possible case of its usage. Eg. "Expect input to be in pstoedit's intermediate format, not using other preprocessing. Useful to do: ...". Eduard. -- System Information: Debian Release: testing/unstable APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental') Architecture: i386 (i686) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.15 Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
