bug#53196: 28.0.90; Default Emacs is too noisy

bug#53196: 28.0.90; Default Emacs is too noisy

[N. Jackson]

I ran emacs -Q today (to confirm a bug) and I was driven to
distraction by all the beeping. [My Emacs is mercifully silent,
presumably(?) because I have `visible-bell' turned on, so I'm not
used to all the noise.] On this system the beep sounds like a drop
of water falling into a pool and it is very loud (even though I keep
my volume level set quite low). Just a few minutes in emacs -Q was a
torture.

It seems that this noisiness must be a deterrent to new users
starting to use Emacs; it would certainly discourage some from
sticking with it when they first use it.

One simple improvement would be to not sound a beep when the user
presses `C-g'. That would reduce the amount of noise very greatly.


In GNU Emacs 28.0.90 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.30, cairo version 1.17.4)
 of 2021-12-03 built on moondust.localdomain
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12014000
System Description: Fedora 34 (Workstation Edition)

Configured using:
 'configure CFLAGS=-O3'

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ
JPEG LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSELINUX LIBXML2 MODULES NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER
PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS X11 XDBE XIM
XPM GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_CA.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=none
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Org

Minor modes in effect:
  TeX-PDF-mode: t
  csv-field-index-mode: t
  flyspell-mode: t
  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
  recentf-mode: t
  yas-global-mode: t
  yas-minor-mode: t
  savehist-mode: t
  save-place-mode: t
  electric-pair-mode: t
  display-time-mode: t
  display-battery-mode: t
  desktop-save-mode: t
  delete-selection-mode: t
  cua-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  temp-buffer-resize-mode: t
  size-indication-mode: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  global-visual-line-mode: t
  visual-line-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  abbrev-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
/home/nlj/.emacs.d/elpa/transient-0.3.7/transient hides /data/installs/snapshots/emacs-28.0.90/lisp/transient

Features:
(solar cal-dst holidays hol-loaddefs cal-iso org-duration face-remap
gnus-html url-cache gnus-kill smerge-mode diff jka-compr mailalias
smtpmail shadow emacsbug bbdb-message sendmail gnus-cite mm-archive
mail-extr gnus-async gnus-bcklg qp gnus-ml disp-table pp cl-print
help-fns radix-tree add-log misearch multi-isearch hl-line nndraft
nnmh utf-7 gnutls network-stream nsm nnfolder bbdb-gnus bbdb-mua
nnnil gnus-agent gnus-srvr gnus-score score-mode nnvirtual gnus-msg
nntp gnus-cache tex-info texinfo texinfo-loaddefs rst sh-script
executable goto-addr view mhtml-mode css-mode smie color js imenu
sgml-mode facemenu gnus-art mm-uu mml2015 mm-view mml-smime smime
dig gnus-sum gnus-group gnus-undo gnus-start gnus-dbus gnus-cloud
nnimap nnmail mail-source utf7 netrc nnoo gnus-spec gnus-int
gnus-range message rmc rfc822 mml mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies
mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 gmm-utils mailheader gnus-win vc-mtn
vc-hg vc-bzr vc-src vc-sccs vc-svn vc-cvs vc-rcs vc cc-awk cc-mode
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cc-vars cc-defs sieve-mode eww xdg url-queue shr kinsoku svg dom
puny mm-url gnus nnheader gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs rfc2047
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preview tex-buf font-latex latex latex-flymake flymake-proc flymake
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filenotify conf-mode csv-mode dired-aux epa-file epa derived epg
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emms-mark emms-mode-line emms-cache emms-info-native bindat
emms-info-exiftool emms-info-tinytag emms-info-metaflac
emms-info-opusinfo emms-info-ogginfo emms-info-mp3info
emms-playlist-mode emms-player-vlc emms-player-mpv emms-playing-time
emms-info emms-later-do emms-player-mplayer emms-player-simple
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frameset delsel cua-base cus-load tex-site ess-generics rx info
package browse-url url url-proxy url-privacy url-expand url-methods
url-history url-cookie url-domsuf url-util mailcap url-handlers
url-parse auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core cl-macs eieio-loaddefs
password-cache json subr-x map url-vars seq byte-opt gv bytecomp
byte-compile cconv cl-loaddefs cl-lib iso-transl tooltip eldoc paren
electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode
mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset
image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode
lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow
isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock
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macroexp files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format
env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote
threads dbusbind inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting
font-render-setting cairo move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty
make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
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 (symbols 48 44171 8)
 (strings 32 493994 22218)
 (string-bytes 1 30564515)
 (vectors 16 144642)
 (vector-slots 8 2693779 634641)
 (floats 8 911 908)
 (intervals 56 148565 132521)
 (buffers 992 144))

bug#53196: 28.0.90; Default Emacs is too noisy

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

"N. Jackson" <nljlistbox2@gmail.com> writes:

> I ran emacs -Q today (to confirm a bug) and I was driven to
> distraction by all the beeping. [My Emacs is mercifully silent,
> presumably(?) because I have `visible-bell' turned on, so I'm not
> used to all the noise.] On this system the beep sounds like a drop
> of water falling into a pool and it is very loud (even though I keep
> my volume level set quite low). Just a few minutes in emacs -Q was a
> torture.
>
> It seems that this noisiness must be a deterrent to new users
> starting to use Emacs; it would certainly discourage some from
> sticking with it when they first use it.
>
> One simple improvement would be to not sound a beep when the user
> presses `C-g'. That would reduce the amount of noise very greatly.

They can turn on visible-bell, I think.  Ringing the bell is quite an
important feature that many of us have been tuned to listen to, and
disabling that by default would be quite sad.

Thanks.

bug#53196: 28.0.90; Default Emacs is too noisy

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "N. Jackson" <nljlistbox2@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 15:20:28 -0500
> 
> I ran emacs -Q today (to confirm a bug) and I was driven to
> distraction by all the beeping. [My Emacs is mercifully silent,
> presumably(?) because I have `visible-bell' turned on, so I'm not
> used to all the noise.] On this system the beep sounds like a drop
> of water falling into a pool and it is very loud (even though I keep
> my volume level set quite low). Just a few minutes in emacs -Q was a
> torture.

What caused the beeps?  It isn't supposed to be too frequent, unless
you bump into errors all the time.

> One simple improvement would be to not sound a beep when the user
> presses `C-g'. That would reduce the amount of noise very greatly.

C-g is a kind of interrupt, ringing the bell is justified when the
user interrupts whatever Emacs is doing.

bug#53196: 28.0.90; Default Emacs is too noisy

[Glenn Morris]

See https://debbugs.gnu.org/1305 (~ 200 messages, 13 years)