bug#51961: image-mode: advertize viewing an image as hex less eagerly

bug#51961: image-mode: advertize viewing an image as hex less eagerly

[Stefan Kangas]

Severity: minor

This is a usability bug:

I don't think image mode should advertize it's capability to view an
image as hex in a message every time it is enabled:

    Type C-c C-c or C-c C-x to view the image as text or hex

Editing the hex or "text" of something like a JPEG does not strike me as
something most people will be able to do usefully by hand.  For bitmap
formats maybe, but even then, won't people just use an image editor?

And for those users that do know what bits to flip, can't we expect them
to be able to figure out that Emacs has a command to quickly flip to the
built-in hex editor or to "text mode"?  For example by reading the mode
help?  IOW, I think this message confuses more than it helps (but see
the final paragraph below).

Why not advertize some useful commands instead, like "Press h for help",
or "Use + and - to scale up and down"?

Or, even better perhaps, just say nothing?  It's already all there in
`describe-mode', right?

There is a minority of image types where it is obviously useful,
i.e. XPM and similar formats where the image is actually just a plain
text file.  I think we could consider keeping the message for those.

bug#51961: image-mode: advertize viewing an image as hex less eagerly

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
> Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2021 04:38:10 +0100
> 
> There is a minority of image types where it is obviously useful,
> i.e. XPM and similar formats where the image is actually just a plain
> text file.  I think we could consider keeping the message for those.

SVG is the prominent example of those where there's a significant
ambiguity in the user's intent.

bug#51961: image-mode: advertize viewing an image as hex less eagerly

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> There is a minority of image types where it is obviously useful,
>> i.e. XPM and similar formats where the image is actually just a plain
>> text file.  I think we could consider keeping the message for those.
>
> SVG is the prominent example of those where there's a significant
> ambiguity in the user's intent.

Yup.  I think we should keep the message for SVG and XPM and ditch if
for everything else.  (If there's more of these formats, we can add them
back.  Perhaps make a defcustom to allow tweaking?)

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

bug#51961: image-mode: advertize viewing an image as hex less eagerly

[Stefan Kangas]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> SVG is the prominent example of those where there's a significant
> ambiguity in the user's intent.

Ah, but of course.  I forgot about the most important one!

Given my recent experience in working with SVG files, I'd say we would
do well to keep a message for such files.

bug#51961: image-mode: advertize viewing an image as hex less eagerly

[Juri Linkov]

> There is a minority of image types where it is obviously useful,
> i.e. XPM and similar formats where the image is actually just a plain
> text file.  I think we could consider keeping the message for those.

I agree that this message should be displayed only for modes
where `(major-mode-restore '(image-mode image-mode-as-text))'
in `image-mode-to-text' doesn't change mode to 'fundamental-mode'
or 'so-long-mode'.

bug#51961: image-mode: advertize viewing an image as hex less eagerly

[Stefan Kangas]

close 51961 29.1
thanks

> Yup.  I think we should keep the message for SVG and XPM and ditch if
> for everything else.  (If there's more of these formats, we can add them
> back.  Perhaps make a defcustom to allow tweaking?)

Now done on master (commit 8fda6770af).

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion.