Grouping commands by app in ./manage.py help

[George Karpenkov]

Hi everyone,

Recently I'm becoming more and more annoyed with ./manage.py help behavior -- in projects with many dependencies it's virtually impossible to find the command you need as there are just too many, and searching for the one you need takes ages (and ages and ages).

So I thought that grouping by app can make the output much better, and implemented grouping-by-apps in the help command. 

One detail I'm not too sure about is that in get_command() for some(?) reason 'startapp' command maps to ProjectCommand, while every other command maps to the corresponding app. I've hardcoded the special-case-check for ProjectCommand, but it would be nice to know why it was done this way in the first place.

Corresponding ticket with patch - https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/16445

See below for the example of how much difference it makes:

Available subcommands:

  backfill_api_keys

  build_solr_schema

  changepassword

  clean_predicates

  clean_pyc

  clean_relations

  cleanup

  clear_index

  collectstatic

  compile_pyc

  compilemessages

  convert_to_south

  create_app

  create_command

  create_jobs

  createcachetable

  createsuperuser

  css_slate

  csv_report

  customdashboard

  custommenu

  datamigration

  dbshell

  delete_orphaned_references

  describe_form

  diffsettings

  dumpdata

  dumpscript

  export_emails

  fetch_training_dates

  find_template

  findstatic

  flush

  generate_secret_key

  graph_models

  graphmigrations

  haystack_info

  inspectdb

  loaddata

  loadmongodata

  lumpy_migration

  mail_debug

  makemessages

  migrate

  migrate_legacy

  migrate_to_mongo

  mongostack_update

  passwd

  print_user_for_session

  rebuild_index

  rebuild_mptt

  rebuild_mptt_direct

  repair_tree

  reset

  reset_db

  runfcgi

  runjob

  runjobs

  runprofileserver

  runscript

  runserver

  runserver_plus

  schemamigration

  set_fake_emails

  set_fake_passwords

  shell

  shell_plus

  show_recent_edits

  show_templatetags

  show_urls

  sql

  sqlall

  sqlclear

  sqlcustom

  sqldiff

  sqlflush

  sqlindexes

  sqlinitialdata

  sqlreset

  sqlsequencereset

  startapp

  startmigration

  sync_media_s3

  syncdata

  syncdb

  test

  testserver

  thumbnail_cleanup

  unreferenced_files

  update_index

  update_rsscontent

  validate

Compare that to:

Available subcommands:

admin_tools.dashboard:

        customdashboard

admin_tools.menu:

        custommenu

bios:

        csv_report

compressor:

        css_slate

django.contrib.auth:

        changepassword

        createsuperuser

django.contrib.staticfiles:

        collectstatic

        findstatic

        runserver

django.core:

        cleanup

        compilemessages

        createcachetable

        dbshell

        diffsettings

        dumpdata

        flush

        inspectdb

        loaddata

        makemessages

        reset

        runfcgi

        shell

        sql

        sqlall

        sqlclear

        sqlcustom

        sqlflush

        sqlindexes

        sqlinitialdata

        sqlreset

        sqlsequencereset

        startapp

        validate

django_extensions:

        clean_pyc

        compile_pyc

        create_app

        create_command

        create_jobs

        describe_form

        dumpscript

        export_emails

        find_template

        generate_secret_key

        graph_models

        mail_debug

        passwd

        print_user_for_session

        reset_db

        runjob

        runjobs

        runprofileserver

        runscript

        runserver_plus

        set_fake_emails

        set_fake_passwords

        shell_plus

        show_templatetags

        show_urls

        sqldiff

        sync_media_s3

        syncdata

        unreferenced_files

easy_thumbnails:

        thumbnail_cleanup

feincms:

        rebuild_mptt

        rebuild_mptt_direct

        update_rsscontent

feincmstools:

        lumpy_migration

        repair_tree

haystack:

        build_solr_schema

        clear_index

        haystack_info

        rebuild_index

        update_index

legacy:

        clean_predicates

        clean_relations

        fetch_training_dates

        migrate_legacy

        migrate_to_mongo

mongoadmin:

        show_recent_edits

mongointegrity:

        delete_orphaned_references

mongostack:

        mongostack_update

mongoutils:

        loadmongodata

south:

        convert_to_south

        datamigration

        graphmigrations

        migrate

        schemamigration

        startmigration

        syncdb

        test

        testserver

tastypie:

        backfill_api_keys

[Russell Keith-Magee]

On Sunday, July 10, 2011, George Karpenkov <true.c...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> Recently I'm becoming more and more annoyed with ./manage.py help behavior -- in projects with many dependencies it's virtually impossible to find the command you need as there are just too many, and searching for the one you need takes ages (and ages and ages).
> So I thought that grouping by app can make the output much better, and implemented grouping-by-apps in the help command.
> One detail I'm not too sure about is that in get_command() for some(?) reason 'startapp' command maps to ProjectCommand, while every other command maps to the corresponding app. I've hardcoded the special-case-check for ProjectCommand, but it would be nice to know why it was done this way in the first place.
> Corresponding ticket with patch - https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/16445

As I have noted on the ticket; this has been proposed in the past - see #11745.

Yours,
Russ Magee %-)

[George Karpenkov]

What do you think is required to get it into the trunk?

I don't think the objections on #11745 are valid --
1) If an app overrides builtin command, it would be quite confusing to
see that command still under built-in app, as that would give you no
hint that the command was overwritten.
2) I'm not quite sure how ./manage.py help --list would help -- if
someone is parsing the list, they'll have to change their script
anyway.

On Jul 10, 9:13 pm, Russell Keith-Magee <russ...@keith-magee.com>
wrote:

> On Sunday, July 10, 2011, George Karpenkov <true.chesh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> > Recently I'm becoming more and more annoyed with ./manage.py help behavior -- in projects with many dependencies it's virtually impossible to find the command you need as there are just too many, and searching for the one you need takes ages (and ages and ages).
> > So I thought that grouping by app can make the output much better, and implemented grouping-by-apps in the help command.
> > One detail I'm not too sure about is that in get_command() for some(?) reason 'startapp' command maps to ProjectCommand, while every other command maps to the corresponding app. I've hardcoded the special-case-check for ProjectCommand, but it would be nice to know why it was done this way in the first place.

> > Corresponding ticket with patch -https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/16445