From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Phil Sainty Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.bugs Subject: bug#38601: describe-mode never says the most important thing Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2019 15:09:09 +1300 Message-ID: <23f279f3-f2a6-6327-b1eb-0d167cdfad22@orcon.net.nz> References: <87d0crpzxg.5.fsf@jidanni.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="64616"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/60.9.0 To: =?UTF-8?Q?=E7=A9=8D=E4=B8=B9=E5=B0=BC?= Dan Jacobson , 38601@debbugs.gnu.org Original-X-From: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Dec 15 03:10:12 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1igJMK-000Gdv-DC for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 15 Dec 2019 03:10:12 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35314 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1igJMI-00059O-FU for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 14 Dec 2019 21:10:10 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:40818) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1igJMC-00059I-Dz for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 14 Dec 2019 21:10:05 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1igJMA-00027v-P5 for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 14 Dec 2019 21:10:04 -0500 Original-Received: from debbugs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.43]:58183) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1igJMA-00026T-DO for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 14 Dec 2019 21:10:02 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-debbugs by debbugs.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1igJMA-0003w8-3j for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 14 Dec 2019 21:10:02 -0500 X-Loop: help-debbugs@gnu.org Resent-From: Phil Sainty Original-Sender: "Debbugs-submit" Resent-CC: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Resent-Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2019 02:10:02 +0000 Resent-Message-ID: Resent-Sender: help-debbugs@gnu.org X-GNU-PR-Message: followup 38601 X-GNU-PR-Package: emacs Original-Received: via spool by 38601-submit@debbugs.gnu.org id=B38601.157637575515055 (code B ref 38601); Sun, 15 Dec 2019 02:10:02 +0000 Original-Received: (at 38601) by debbugs.gnu.org; 15 Dec 2019 02:09:15 +0000 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:35923 helo=debbugs.gnu.org) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1igJLO-0003ul-Lf for submit@debbugs.gnu.org; Sat, 14 Dec 2019 21:09:14 -0500 Original-Received: from smtp-2.orcon.net.nz ([60.234.4.43]:39485) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1igJLM-0003ua-Ex for 38601@debbugs.gnu.org; Sat, 14 Dec 2019 21:09:13 -0500 Original-Received: from [116.251.203.246] (port=33758 helo=[192.168.20.103]) by smtp-2.orcon.net.nz with esmtpa (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1igJLJ-0000RB-55; Sun, 15 Dec 2019 15:09:09 +1300 In-Reply-To: <87d0crpzxg.5.fsf@jidanni.org> Content-Language: en-GB X-GeoIP: NZ X-Spam_score: -2.9 X-Spam_score_int: -28 X-Spam_bar: -- X-BeenThere: debbugs-submit@debbugs.gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 209.51.188.43 X-BeenThere: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org List-Id: "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "bug-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.bugs:173364 Archived-At: On 14/12/19 12:29 PM, 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson wrote: > P.S., some of the entries are followed by a mysterious > (fn &optional ARG) > and some of them aren't. It appears that this bug has been fixed for Emacs 27. > each section between the ^L's could go on for miles and miles, never > revealing the most important thing: how to turn it on and off. Surely the most important thing is telling you what each mode does. Knowing how to turn them off is important, but once you know how to turn one minor mode on or off, then you know how to turn *any* minor mode on or off -- it's the same in all cases. (I do think there's an argument for showing the mode symbol rather than a capitalised variant of the name in the `describe-mode' help; but that's a different conversation.) > Well OK, at the top say "to avoid cluttering the page, please click > each item to learn how to turn it on and off". (Or "how to invoke.") But even if you follow the link, it still won't tell you how to *interactively* enable or disable the mode (e.g. with M-x MODENAME); so if a person is so new to Emacs that they don't already know how to do all these things, I'm not sure that your suggestion is sufficient to resolve that situation. And once they do have that very basic understanding of modes, the information is pretty redundant. I don't think I'd be bothered by the information being added, but I'm not sure that its absence is really a significant problem? I suspect you'll need more people to add their agreement to the bug report to convince people otherwise. -Phil