[Debconf-devel] Bug#560323: debconf: document the fact that the TITLE command is deprecated

[Frans Pop]

On Thursday 10 December 2009, you wrote:
> But is TITLE actually deprecated? The warning message is printed by
> cdebconf, not debconf. 

Yes, I found out that this is more a cdebconf issue than a debconf one 
after filing the bug.

OTOH, shouldn't the protocols be the same for both packages, especially 
with a view to the planned changeover from debconf to cdebconf for the 
installed system?

> In d-i, this makes some sense, as TITLE cannot be localised in that
> environment 

Well, in principle you could even workaround that if SETTITLE wasn't 
available:
   db_metaget <some text template> description
   db_title $RET

> (unless the string comes in via passthrough).

And that is exactly where most "obsolete command" warnings currently come 
from :-/

> In Debian though, TITLE can be localised using gettext, and there's
> nothing really wrong with doing so. 

In theory yes. But today I filed a few bugs against packages using db_title 
in maintainer scripts to set hardcoded dialog titles that really should 
have been translatable.

From that PoV deprecating TITLE makes sense as it forces developers to use 
SETTITLE and therefore do the right thing regarding translations.

But if you feel there are valid use cases for TITLE I'm not against keeping 
it, but in that case I think the deprecation warning in cdebconf should be 
removed. I think D-I developers are sufficiently aware of translation 
issues that they'll not use it.

Cheers,
FJP