[syslinux] please revert MENU CLEAR so to make it optional again

[Ady]

> On 11/26/2012 06:51 AM, Matt Fleming wrote:
> > On Wed, 2012-11-21 at 14:09 -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> >> That being said, we really need a way to *disable* boolean options.
> >> Either something like "MENU NO CLEAR" or "MENU CLEAR OFF".
> >
> > Hmm.. is that going to be useful? There are a lot of MENU options where
> > prefixing a "NO" doesn't make sense.
> >
> >> Either way we should make it uniform syntax across all the boolean
> >> options.  I'm kind of thinking that "MENU NO CLEAR" would work well;
> >> "MENU NO" would simply set a flag that we're clearing options instead of
> >> setting them, and then parse the following keyword.
> >
> > Do you have a particular use case in mind?
> >
> 
> Well, obviously disabling MENU CLEAR, but also other boolean options 
> (and yes, it doesn't make sense for non-booleans).  MENU CLEAR OFF works 
> too, and we can have a single function parse_boolean() to parse the rest 
> of the string in a uniform manner for boolean options.
> 
> 	-hpa
> 

I have already sent suggestions (a few days ago) about negating 
boolean directives, making them more consistent (as oppose to using 
different ideas depending on the original directive to be negated). 
So I won't repeat them here.

But, much more important is my request: please revert the MENU CLEAR 
being the default!!! It makes no sense. The more I test 5.00 
pre-releases, I find more reasons not to use MENU CLEAR as automatic 
default.

1_ It makes the current MENU CLEAR useless.
2_ It makes some MENU *ROW* directive(s) useless.
3_ It requires a new directive just to revert to the current behavior 
as of 4.06 (and older).
4_ Updating to 5.00pre10 some ISO images that are already using 4.06, 
the result is awful and harder to use, and the change breaks the 
current behavior.
5_ It messes the first line of the screen in several situations, 
including DISPLAY files.

So after giving those reasons NOT to use MENU CLEAR as new automatic 
default, I should ask, is there any reason to use this behavior 
instead of maintaining the behavior used in 4.06 and older?

Please, revert that commit.

TIA,
Ady.