IRAF help page for package system, program gripes

• subject
• verbose = yes

gripes subject

subject

verbose = yes

The gripes task is used to post complaints, suggestions, or any other formal or informal comments regarding the IRAF system. Each gripe is appended to the system gripesfile "hlib$gripesfile", a public file which can be read by anyone by simply typing "page hlib$gripesfile" within IRAF. Use tail instead of page to read only the most recent gripes. A copy of each gripe is also sent immediately to one or members of the IRAF group via electronic mail, to insure that the gripe gets read promptly (this feature is not available on all host systems).

Gripe text is read from the standard input. A line containing only a period terminates the gripe, as does the end of file character (e.g., ). If the line containing only "~e" is entered a text editor will be called up to edit the text of the gripe.

Users are encouraged to use the gripe facility at will. Be assured that someone will at least read the gripe, although there is no guarantee that any action will be taken. In many cases there will be no response from the system, but nonetheless the gripe will be seen and it may well influence the direction in which the system evolves. Do not avoid posting gripes for fear that you do not understand something about the system; if enough users find some aspect of the system or a program confusing then that is more than sufficient reason for a gripe.

1. The user has discovered some nasty features of the imdelete task and enters the following gripe. Note the use of the "." to terminate the text.

	cl> gripe
	Subject: image deletion
	Enter text of gripe.  Type  or '.' to quit:
	IMDEL * will delete non image files as well as images!
	It should be possible to delete images with the normal
	DELETE command.
	.
	cl>

BUGS There is currently no provision for communicating gripes from a remote site back to the site that wrote the software, unless some person manually mails a gripe (or the accumulated gripesfile).

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