bug#6595: 24.0.50; tooltip doc

bug#6595: 24.0.50; tooltip doc

[Drew Adams]

The tooltip doc is not so great.
 
Node Tooltips of the Emacs manual says nothing about tooltip mode being
enabled by default.  And it says nothing about option
`tooltip-use-echo-area'.
 
More generally, it nowhere explains clearly what the recommended way of
moving help to the echo area is (i.e. not using tooltips).  There is an
option, `tooltip-use-echo-area', whose doc tells you that if you want
help to appear in the echo area then you should customize this to
non-nil and enable tooltip mode.
 
But why?  Why is there this separate option, in addition to the option
`tooltip-mode', whose customization to nil has the same effect of moving
help to the echo area?
 
This is not clear to me.  Either there is a design flaw - perhaps
`tooltip-use-echo-area' should be removed, or more likely something is
simply missing from the doc.  Please explain - make this topic clear to
users.

In GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2010-06-28 on 3249CTO
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
configured using `configure --with-gcc (4.4) --no-opt --cflags -Ic:/xpm/include'
 

bug#6595: 24.0.50; tooltip doc

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> The tooltip doc is not so great.
>
> Node Tooltips of the Emacs manual says nothing about tooltip mode being
> enabled by default.  And it says nothing about option
> `tooltip-use-echo-area'.
>
> More generally, it nowhere explains clearly what the recommended way of
> moving help to the echo area is (i.e. not using tooltips).  There is an
> option, `tooltip-use-echo-area', whose doc tells you that if you want
> help to appear in the echo area then you should customize this to
> non-nil and enable tooltip mode.

It says (now):

  You can toggle display of help tooltips (Tooltip mode) with the
command @kbd{M-x tooltip-mode}.  When Tooltip mode is disabled, the
help text is displayed in the echo area instead.

Which I think is clear enough.

> This is not clear to me.  Either there is a design flaw - perhaps
> `tooltip-use-echo-area' should be removed, or more likely something is
> simply missing from the doc.  Please explain - make this topic clear to
> users.

I think `tooltip-use-echo-area' should be obsoleted -- as you point out,
it seems nonsensical.

Does anybody know why `tooltip-use-echo-area' exists?  Hysterical
raisins?

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

bug#6595: 24.0.50; tooltip doc

[Chong Yidong]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I think `tooltip-use-echo-area' should be obsoleted -- as you point
> out, it seems nonsensical.
>
> Does anybody know why `tooltip-use-echo-area' exists?  Hysterical
> raisins?

If I'm not wrong, Emacs used to have a more limited facility for showing
echo area tips without going through tooltip.el.  Nowadays both
graphical and echo area tooltips use tooltip.el.  I've marked
`tooltip-use-echo-area' as obsolete.