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Subjectlosing a menuconfig session to a typo
It's easy to accidentally lose a menuconfig session.  Scenarios start with a
user being accustomed to hitting [right-arrow][return] to exit from a typical
menu. Perhaps the user prefers his underutilized numeric keypad over adding to
the beating [escape] takes. Scenarios finish with the user accidentally
issuing [right-arrow][return] to "Do you wish to save? <Yes> <No>". I only
lost a quick change, but it's easy to imagine how a few hours of menuconfig
time might go away. "It'll just take a few minutes to whip my distro's kernel
into shape." Yeah right. Four hours of guesswork and research later, you're
tired, thinking about the make command to follow, [right-arrow][return] as
usual, wait! no! damndamndamn!, yer snookered.

There are a variety of simple ways to address this. First, change the menu.
Swapping the order of the <Yes> and <No> would be begging for even more
trouble. However, the <Yes>/<No> decision could be made a <Yes>/<Maybe>/<No>
decision. This leaves <Yes>, the predominant choice, in place. <Maybe>, in
the disputed position, could simply present the same menu. Someone might even
have a little well-deserved fun with <Maybe> menus. This doesn't seem all that
intrusive to me. Second, print the diff. When changes aren't saved, a diff of
the original config and one that would've been saved could simply be written to
stdout followed by a little blurb, "Those were the changes you didn't save.".
Third, add a save command. I save at comfortable intervals when editing
everything else, why not kernel configurations? This reduces the scope of
lossage in general.

Regards, [Ag] Andy Gaynor euphoria@inbox.com


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