Bug 197645

Summary: Handbook does not mention using TAB character in bsdinstall section(s)
Product: Documentation Reporter: web
Component: Books & ArticlesAssignee: Chris Rees <crees>
Status: Closed FIXED    
Severity: Affects Some People CC: crees
Priority: --- Keywords: patch
Version: Latest   
Hardware: Any   
OS: Any   
Attachments:
Description Flags
Add reference to the "Tab" key none

Description web 2015-02-14 16:27:39 UTC
I don't install FreeBSD on a bare machine much these days, but I had the need to do
a bare install yesterday.  I was completely frustrated when I got to the "Manual"
partition section of bsdinstall.  Everything had gone fine up to that point, but then
I could not create my partitions since the arrow keys used for navigation did not work
in the naive sense.  Going to the handbook (on another system) did not help.  Finally,
searching gmane.org for previous discussions about this problem in freebsd-questions
revealed to me that the TAB key was necessary to properly navigate the partition creation
section of the "Manual" choice (for experts!).  D'oh!  Did I feel stupid!

Please, please, change the documentation (Chapter 2.5 and related) in the handbook at
least, and perhaps provide better help assistance in bsdinstall so that the use of the
TAB key is mentioned.  Most people use the SPACE bar, the RETURN key, and the arrow
keys, but the TAB key is not one of the first things that lept to my forebrain.

Warren Block has responded to me in an email.  What he says may be indicative:

   "Curses and dialog(1) are known for their somewhat confusing keyboard usage.
    I find the disk partitioning in bsdinstall confusing also, but have not had
    any inspiration on making it less confusing.  A bug report might or might not
    help.  Devin Teske was working on improving bsdinstall, but I have not been
    following the progress."

I hope this bug report will result in clearer and better experiences for users who
find using bsdinstall a bit confusing and less than intuitive.  Thank you.
Comment 1 Chris Rees freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2018-12-23 15:18:22 UTC
Created attachment 200400 [details]
Add reference to the "Tab" key

I haven't found many examples where this is necessary, so I've suggested putting it in the partitioning section you mention.

Would this help?
Comment 2 Chris Rees freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2019-04-16 10:03:14 UTC
Committed.  Thanks!
Comment 3 commit-hook freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2019-04-16 10:03:48 UTC
A commit references this bug:

Author: crees
Date: Tue Apr 16 10:02:52 UTC 2019
New revision: 52928
URL: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/doc/52928

Log:
  Give a hint to curses navigation

  It is not immediately obvious to all users how to move the cursor around
  the partitioning section in bsdinstall, and this kind of thing can put
  people off very quickly.

  PR:		docs/197645
  Submitted by:	web@umich.edu

Changes:
  head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall/chapter.xml