From: janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com   
      
   On 06.11.2025 05:29, Michael Sanders wrote:   
   > Rounding the corner to completion on a project   
   > I've worked on for 5 or 6 years & now I'm stumped   
   > by a very simple thing...   
   >   
   > When the user passes no arguments, I default to   
   > the panel below, yet I wonder if its expressed   
   > concisely enough to avoid confusion or promote it...   
   >   
   > I don't feel its too bad, but then again I know   
   > what its doing while others wont.   
   >   
   > Hoping to read responses on you'd express this.   
      
   There's no clear standard and you can certainly find   
   various forms. It's probably also depending on taste   
   to some degree. But there's also a common subset that   
   you often find. Some impressions on the sample below...   
      
   >   
   > Syntax: tinybase OPTION - INPUT   
      
   I find a line like this not very useful (per se).   
      
   >   
   > Options (use 1 option per invocation):   
      
   If that's the case you don't really need a '-' or '--'   
   to terminate options.   
      
   >   
   > Tag query:       -q 'comma seperated queries'   
   > Tag index:       -t   
   > Tinybase manual: -m   
   >   
   > Input:   
   >   
   > File list: - file1 file2 file3   
   > Stdin:     - <   
   > Examples:   
   >   
   > tinybase -q 'query1, query2, query3' - *.txt   
   > tinybase -t - *.txt   
   > tinybase -m > manual.txt   
      
   Examples are fine (but '-' is syntactically unnecessary).   
   A description is completely missing. (And a manual page   
   should also have information about exit status codes.)   
      
   My preference for usage information goes in the direction   
   (despite being also - like your "Syntax" line - formally   
   not perfectly accurate)...   
      
      
   Synopsis:   
       tinybase [ -q queries... | -t | -m ] files...   
      
   Options:   
       -q queries...     comma separated list of queries   
       -t                   
       -m                show manual   
      
   Description:   
       ...   
      
   Examples:   
       tinybase -q 'query1, query2, query3' - *.txt   
       tinybase -t - *.txt   
       tinybase -m > manual.txt   
      
      
   Where a quick usage help would just print a single line   
       Usage: tinybase [ -q queries... | -t | -m ] files...   
   and a verbose information or manual page would show the   
   complete information. (I would support both, terse usage   
   and full information. No arguments provided could just   
   show the usage and '-?' or similar could provide details.   
   There's various possibilities depending on the character   
   and complexity of the tool, what information you want to   
   obtain quickly and when you need details.)   
      
   I also suggest to just inspect what other programs and   
   tools do here. You will get a feeling then what's there   
   and whether it's enough for you to understand that tool.   
   Add thereby identifying those sections and contents in   
   your info page that is missing in your tool-information   
   to understand it.   
      
   Janis   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)