bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Jean Louis]

I do not agree that the menu option under Help -> About Emacs is
giving meaningful information to user:

This is GNU Emacs, one component of the GNU/Linux operating system.

GNU Emacs 28.0.50 (build 15, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, cairo version 1.14.8, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2020-09-24
Copyright (C) 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

To follow a link, click Mouse-1 on it, or move to it and type RET.

Authors		Many people have contributed code included in GNU Emacs
Contributing	How to report bugs and contribute improvements to Emacs

GNU and Freedom		Why we developed GNU Emacs and the GNU system
Absence of Warranty	GNU Emacs comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Copying Conditions	Conditions for redistributing and changing Emacs
Getting New Versions	How to get the latest version of GNU Emacs
More Manuals / Ordering Manuals	Buying printed manuals from the FSF

One basic example is that the page does not tell to user that Emacs is
editor. So the "About Emacs" is not straight to the point to tell what
Emacs is.

For example if I open Gnumeric -> Help -> Info I can see it is
spreadsheet, as it is written, so it is with many applications. With
Emacs, it is not even written that it is text editor.

This statement may appeal strange to developer, please assume
viewpoint of a beginning user or just somebody who finds application
on a screen in computer club or Internet point, and wish to find about
it. It should not be realization after reading many pages, it should
be written that it is for text editing.

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2020 22:39:48 +0200
> 
> One basic example is that the page does not tell to user that Emacs is
> editor. So the "About Emacs" is not straight to the point to tell what
> Emacs is.

What would you suggest to say there?  Emacs is not just an editor, but
OTOH whatever we want to say we need to say succinctly, so as not to
overflow the single line we have for that.

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Jean Louis]

* Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> [2020-09-27 09:39]:
> > From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> > Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2020 22:39:48 +0200
> > 
> > One basic example is that the page does not tell to user that Emacs is
> > editor. So the "About Emacs" is not straight to the point to tell what
> > Emacs is.
> 
> What would you suggest to say there?  Emacs is not just an editor, but
> OTOH whatever we want to say we need to say succinctly, so as not to
> overflow the single line we have for that.

That is good question how to formulate the designation for
characteristics that is not only the text editor.

For me, it is ready user interface that I use to manage the database
and collect information, yet all those functions are still text editor
functions. It is viewing images, PDF, epub, djvu files, it is much
more than text editor.

That is important point that shall be presented.

For me it is: general computing environment

Jean

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2020 09:52:15 +0300
> From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> Cc: 43636@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> For me it is: general computing environment

That sounds too general and abstract to be useful.  E.g., I could say
the same about any modern OS.

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Jean Louis]

* Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> [2020-09-27 10:27]:
> > Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2020 09:52:15 +0300
> > From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> > Cc: 43636@debbugs.gnu.org
> > 
> > For me it is: general computing environment
> 
> That sounds too general and abstract to be useful.  E.g., I could say
> the same about any modern OS.

Yes, it is too general for public. I am using Emacs to make
applications within Emacs.

We can see that Tetris, Pong and other games can be made within
Emacs, so it is foundation for development.

Maybe Emacs does not fit anywhere into any known group, it may be
unique.

It is used as IDE:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_development_environment

What I wish to say, it is platform for development of applications
that run within Emacs. Maybe it is not common to develop full
applications in Emacs Lisp, but that is what it is for me.

How to name it? Hard to say.

Jean

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Drew Adams]

> > For me it is: general computing environment
> 
> That sounds too general and abstract to be useful.  E.g., I could say
> the same about any modern OS.

Yes.  IMO, nearly any list of general labels won't
be very helpful.  It might suffice to say at the
outset that you can do lots of things with Emacs -
it is a text editor and more.  IOW, the old "kitchen
sink".

It's by examples (even descriptions of examples)
that we can convey the breadth of "what you can do"
with Emacs.  A list of labels won't help anyone
much, IMO.

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > > What would you suggest to say there?  Emacs is not just an editor, but
  > > OTOH whatever we want to say we need to say succinctly, so as not to
  > > overflow the single line we have for that.

  > That is good question how to formulate the designation for
  > characteristics that is not only the text editor.

"Text editor and more"?
"Text editor and much more"?
"Text editor^2"?


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>   > That is good question how to formulate the designation for
>   > characteristics that is not only the text editor.
>
> "Text editor and more"?

Now done in Emacs 29.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Po Lu via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>
>>   > That is good question how to formulate the designation for
>>   > characteristics that is not only the text editor.
>>
>> "Text editor and more"?
>
> Now done in Emacs 29.

How about "the text editor of the GNU operating system?"

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> writes:

> How about "the text editor of the GNU operating system?"

I think there's more GNU text editors?  We wouldn't want to slight
anybody.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Po Lu via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> How about "the text editor of the GNU operating system?"
>
> I think there's more GNU text editors?  We wouldn't want to slight
> anybody.

Hmm, then how about "a text editor of the GNU operating system"?

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Juri Linkov]

>>   > That is good question how to formulate the designation for
>>   > characteristics that is not only the text editor.
>>
>> "Text editor and more"?
>
> Now done in Emacs 29.

This is a minor issue but still manifestation of imperfection:
the block cursor is now placed on the first letter of "It's",
that makes it less readable.  Previously point was on the
next empty line by default 😉

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net> writes:

> This is a minor issue but still manifestation of imperfection:
> the block cursor is now placed on the first letter of "It's",
> that makes it less readable.  Previously point was on the
> next empty line by default 😉

😀

Now fixed, and I made it more resilient towards changes like this.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#43636: 28.0.50; About Emacs, shall be descriptive and point to Info file

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> writes:

> Hmm, then how about "a text editor of the GNU operating system"?

Sounds a bit awkward to me..

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no