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format makes things very easy, since it follows the way you'd want to
present the information.  For example, drracket can do the following
pretty easily (just random suggestions, of course):

  * Show the usual stop-sign line with just the title line (without
    the location)
  * When you hover over the line, a popup opens up with the detailed
    two-line explanation.
  * When you click the icon, you jump to the relevant location with
    that popup.
  * When you hover over the error, or maybe in the popup, you see a
    list of field names, and clicking them shows the contents of the
    field.

Even a textual interface like xrepl can do something similar, where
the exposition of details goes gradually based on your needs.

More benefits:

* It's probably not hard to re-change the code, since it's keeping the
  multi-line aspect and the fields.

* Sounds like `error' is not going away in its current format which
  already does the first-line thing fine.

* Existing un-updated code works fine too.

* With the assumption that fields are not initially shown (which
  translates to some parameter), a lot more information can be added
  in them, even when they're irrelevant for human consumption.  For
  example, full paths to source files can blow up the message (eg,
  paths to the blamed file, the contract definition, and the
  contracted file; or list of paths in a cycle; or showing a
  *complete* stacktrace).

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                    http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is Life!