Make aliases useful for deprecating commands

[myk002]

The current alias system is intended to allow a player to make a shorter version of a frequently used command and/or parameter list. However, aliases have recently begun to be used as a way to allow an old name for a renamed/deprecated tool to function. The idea is that players who are used to typing the old name will still be able to do so, and renamed tools that can be enabled will still be enableable via their old name.

Aliases, however, are not well integrated into the rest of the system and do not really provide players and script writers with a good overall experience when they are used to make deprecated names "still available". Here are some ideas for improving the player experience for aliases:

• show appropriate help in gui/launcher when the alias is in the commandline. It would also be useful to prepend the help text with the alias expansion so the player can see exactly what they will be running, though this is not required if it ends up being too difficult.
• possibly already covered by the gui/launcher item, helpdb should display useful help text if an alias is given as an entry (this will allow help text to appear in the hotkeys logo popup menu if an alias is given a hotkey, for example). document that players should poke helpdb to reindex after modifying aliases (we probably don't want to do this automatically since aliases tend to be updated in batches (i.e. in init files) and we already reindex on world load/unload)
• allow reqscript to find the correct script if an alias is named (e.g. reqscript('unforbid') would redirect to reqscript('claim'))
• allow require to find the correct module if an alias is named (e.g. require('plugins.oldname') would redirect to require('plugins.newname'))

Edit: I think the ROI on those last two might be insufficient to warrant implementation.

[Penumbra69]

Taking a look at this.

[myk002]

do you need any help on this one? I could do this part to unblock the claim rename PRs

[jppessoap]

Hello. Could aliases be made for the commands "show" and "hide" so they include "console" or "terminal" on their name, which would better reflect what exactly is shown or hidden, making finding those commands easier?

[Penumbra69]

Apologies - I had some personal matters to deal with -- I will dig back into this.
I believe I know what needs to be done, will try to get a PR pushed asap.

[Penumbra69]

Almost ready to push this PR -- one Q:

document that players should poke helpdb to reindex after modifying aliases

What kind of documentation are you suggesting here?

[myk002]

in the alias command docs, just a line that says something to the effect of "help text is refreshed whenever a game is loaded, but if you modify alias definitions during a running game and want to enable autocomplete and help text for the alias in gui/launcher, be sure to run this command: :lua require('helpdb').refresh()"

[Penumbra69]

in the alias command docs, just a line that says something to the effect of "help text is refreshed whenever a game is loaded, but if you modify alias definitions during a running game and want to enable autocomplete and help text for the alias in gui/launcher, be sure to run this command: :lua require('helpdb').refresh()"

My implementation doesn't seem to incur this requirement, as I'm not actually changing the helpdb text, but synthesizing the alias text on top of what helpdb returns. When I add an alias in the console, gui/launcher can use it without a refresh or reload since it's using the C++ functions to test the input with.

I'll push the PR to ensure my solution meets your needs.

[myk002]

In order to have the alias appear in the autocomplete list, as well as the output of ls and tags (which I realize was not clearly stated as a requirement), I'm certain you'll have to add the entry to helpdb. It will likely only take a light refactoring of logic you've added to gui/launcher. I'll take a look in the PR.

[Penumbra69]

I did not recognize that we wanted the alias as well to be listed - I was only solving for showing the appropriate help when an alias was detected. I will dig into this this evening.