Re: Enhancing the user experience with tcsh

... snip ...

>  if ($?prompt) then
>       # An interactive shell -- set some stuff up
> -       set prompt = "`/bin/hostname -s`# "
> +       set prompt = "[%n_at_%m]%c04%# "
> +       set promptchars = "%#"
>
> Many people had alternative suggestions for the prompt. Can you please
> clarify why you believe your prompt should be the _default_ one?
> While many admins are able to deal with short non-descriptive prompts
> it helps new users to have more detail on the prompt line. I'd like to
> commit some change to the default: currently it is very undescriptive.
> I am leaving open which prompt I am going with at the end though.

Personally, I pay very little attention to the prompt. That being said...
Plenty of people prefer widely different configurations for the prompt.
I think everyone agrees that the default prompt isn't particularly
informative, however, achieving consensus here is going to be almost
impossible. I suggest that it be handled as a seperate discussion,
perhaps?

>
>       set filec
> -       set history = 100
> -       set savehist = 100
> +       set history = 10000
> +       set savehist = 10000
>
> No one complained about this one - it is almost certainly going to
> stay it the final version.
>
> +       set autolist
>
> set autolist=ambiguous makes sense here - I will likely go with that.
>
> +       # Use history to aid expansion
> +       set autoexpand
>
> No one complained about this  - it is almost certainly going to stay
> it the final version.
>
> Now to address some comments made in the thread. I'm sorry for not
> preserving attribution here.
>
>> How about adding stuff like this to /usr/share/examples/tcsh/complete.tcsh ?
>> Along with a comment in .cshrc pointing to that file (or even a commented line to source it), it would be an improvement.
>
> +1 I'll add a comment addressing this file.
>
>> I use the $HOME/bin on my machines but I am not so sure to make this a general thing.
>
> Many people expect it, and given that it is the last item in the path
> it won't affect all that much.

I am against this change, barring a more compelling reason to include
it. Default behavior limits $PATH to areas that are only writable as
root, and there is no garuntee that $HOME can only be written by the
user. As a result, the change may create unanticipated and unnoticed
security consequences some installations. I believe this outweighs the
functionality provided by the proposed change, given how trivial this
is to configure after the fact.

... snip ...

These two issues aside, I do like the idea here. Here's hoping it
doesn't collapse under thousands of coats of paint.

--- Harrison