Writing tip: the oft-forgotten <prompt> tag

[Laura Bailey]

Including the prompt (#/$) is useful, but I'm not convinced tagging it is -- this just seems like extra XML for no real utility to me. What are the benefits of tagging like this, rather than something like:

<screen># yum install foo</screen>

?

If we could alter the styles so that things marked with <prompt> were not copied when a user highlighted and copied commands from the doc to a terminal, that might be different. :)

Cheers, 
Laura Bailey 
Senior Technical Writer
Red Hat Customer Content Services BNE

> On 17 Sep 2014, at 1:55 am, Petr Bokoc <pbokoc at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> We just had a bit of a discussion on IRC and I've been asked to share this with you all:
> 
> The <prompt> tag[1] is awesome, especially in procedures. When you're telling the reader to run a sequence of commands, you can prefix each command with the correct prompt; the user will then know if the command requires root privileges or not, and you don't have to say "run this as root" all the time.
> 
> For example:
> 
> 1. Install the foo package:
> <screen>
> <prompt>#</prompt> <command>yum install foo</command>
> </screen>
> 
> 2. Make sure the foo package is installed:
> <screen>
> <prompt>$</prompt> <command>rpm -q foo</command>
> </screen>
> 
> This way, the user knows that you need root privileges for the first command, because it's prefixed with #, and they don't need to be root for the second one, because the prompt is $. (However, in some simple procedures explaining very basic stuff to beginners it's still useful to include a step that says "Switch to root: $ su -".)
> 
> Make sure to put a space between the prompt and the actual command - otherwise it just looks bad when rendered. Also make sure to use the prompts *everywhere*, because if you only use it for commands that need root and omit it for ones that don't, it ends up being confusing (and looking bad). And finally, don't use this when you mention a command inline (in a <para>) - only in <screen> or <programlisting>.
> 
> Please try to keep this in mind when writing. I'm doing this everywhere in the Installation Guide, and it would be great if we all did the same.
> 
> Cheers,
> Petr
> 
> [1] http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/prompt.html
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