RFR: A "Boot Time Splash Screens" Section to the Handbook

[Manolis Kiagias]

Gabor PALI wrote:
> Hello there,
>
> A few weeks ago Joseph J. Barbish has contributed a section on boot time
> splash screens for the FreeBSD Handbook [1], and after a short
> discussion it was requested for comments whether to be really included
> it or not [2].  It received a very positive feedback on the topic, so I
> created the SGML version of it, that you can study in form of a patch
> [3] and a compiled HTML page [4].
>
> Please, review, comment and send me your ideas on how to make it better
> (and fix it up).  Obviously, because I am not a native speaker of
> English, it may contain mistakes (I am sure), so review of native
> speakers are the most welcome, however review of avid users of the
> presented boot time splash screen feature are also important for this patch.
>
> Thank you for the replies in advance.
>
> Cheers,
> :g
>
>
> PS: For your information, after its commit, I plan to rewrite the
> corresponding FAQ entry about splash screens to reference this section
> of the Handbook.
>
> [1] http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-doc/2008-November/014989.html
> [2] http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-doc/2008-November/015007.html
> [3]
> http://people.freebsd.org/~pgj/patches/2008/11/29/splash.screen.section.patch.diff
> [4]
> http://people.freebsd.org/~pgj/patches/2008/11/29/html/boot-blocks.html#BOOT-SPLASH
>
>   
Once again very nice work!

Here are a few nits you may want to act on. I have not used splash
screens for a long time as I don't need them (my desktop literally does
not know what a 'reboot' is), so I can't tell about technical accuracy.
It does seem ok though.

"After the system finished booting, a virtual..."  should probably be: 
"After the system finishes booting..."

"...put the user in a graphical desktop" : I don't like using "put" for
this (yes, my bikeshed is green), I would probably rephrase it to
something like "...present the user with a graphical desktop"

"Note that, a 320x200 “splash screen” image will be displayed as a small
block in the center of a solid white background screen."  => I don't
understand what you mean by this. Since the resolution at boot will be
320x200, the splash screen will still fill the entire screen. Do you
mean to compare the size of the image to a typical desktop?

"To support larger video resolutions up to the maximum of the video card
is, activate...": The "is" here is obviously a mistake. You can 
rephrase this in a number of ways. I would go with something to avoid
repeating words like "resolution" and "support" many times in the same
sentence. Example: "To use larger images, up to the maximum resolution
supported by {the|your} video card, activate..."

"will change to the splash screen and cycles through": "cycle" instead
of "cycles"

While discussing text mode screensavers, it might be worth mentioning
that you can get the list of available savers by ls
/boot/kernel/*saver.ko or something along that line.

" When a PCX file desired, use these statements plus.." => If a PCX file
is desired... (the missing 'is' is the problem, you can keep "when")

"It is not restricted to use “splash” as file name,..." => Haha, let me
revenge the passive voice here :) What you really want to say here is
"You are not restricted to use "splash"..." but since we are not talking
to the user, we must rephrase. You just can't start with "It" because at
this point it does not refer to anything. Something like: "The file name
is not really restricted to "splash" as shown in the above example. It
can be anything..."

"There are 2 another possible" => "There are another 2..." (or better,
"two")

"be still present" => "still be present"

I also feel some longer sentences could use a few commas. I did not make
any notes on these (I was too lazy...) but you will probably get them
from reading the build. I've only peeked at the SGML, but I am sure
there is nothing to fix there :)

Cheers,
manolis@