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getodk / briefcase

ODK Briefcase is a Java application for fetching and pushing forms and their contents. It helps make billions of data points from ODK portable. Contribute and make the world a better place! ✨💼✨
https://docs.getodk.org/briefcase-intro
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Usage information is not correct on the CLI #453

Closed yanokwa closed 6 years ago

yanokwa commented 6 years ago

Software versions

Briefcase v1.10.x

Problem description

With the new and old CLI launcher, we print out the usage information like so.

$ java -jar build/libs/ODK\ Briefcase\ v1.10.0-4-gddc9f2a.jar -h
...
Usage: java -jar briefcase.jar <params>
Available operations:
...
Params for -psha operation:
...

This is a problem for two reasons.

  1. To get this message, the user has to already know how to type java -jar briefcase.jar. We are repeating what they already know.
  2. The message isn't correct. It should probably be java -jar briefcase.jar <operation> <params>.

I vote that we remove the message.

ggalmazor commented 6 years ago

I don't think we should remove the line. It's a pretty common pattern to show a usage line in the help message of a command. I agree that showing the java -jar blabla.jar part is redundant but I think its purpose is more about showing what's the structure of the command after that part.

For example, we're not explaining how not passing any param will launch the GUI. I'll make some changes to address this in #441.

yanokwa commented 6 years ago

Closed by #441