From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Luc Teirlinck Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Problems with info (emacs version) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 22:33:22 -0500 (CDT) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <200306020333.h523XMC23468@eel.dms.auburn.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1054524776 29543 80.91.224.249 (2 Jun 2003 03:32:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 03:32:56 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Mon Jun 02 05:32:50 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19Mg41-0007fp-00 for ; Mon, 02 Jun 2003 05:32:49 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 19MgKS-0001wb-00 for ; Mon, 02 Jun 2003 05:49:48 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19Mg4p-0004St-Si for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Sun, 01 Jun 2003 23:33:39 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19Mg4X-0004R0-8D for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 01 Jun 2003 23:33:21 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19Mg4U-0004Ol-Mk for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 01 Jun 2003 23:33:20 -0400 Original-Received: from manatee.dms.auburn.edu ([131.204.53.104]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19Mg4U-0004NN-7N for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 01 Jun 2003 23:33:18 -0400 Original-Received: from eel.dms.auburn.edu (eel.dms.auburn.edu [131.204.53.108]) by manatee.dms.auburn.edu (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id h523XGoc004501 for ; Sun, 1 Jun 2003 22:33:16 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: (from teirllm@localhost) by eel.dms.auburn.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.11.6) id h523XMC23468; Sun, 1 Jun 2003 22:33:22 -0500 (CDT) X-Authentication-Warning: eel.dms.auburn.edu: teirllm set sender to teirllm@dms.auburn.edu using -f Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:14579 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:14579 The concrete problem in info I described earlier concerning the `g' and `m' commands and invisible text have been solved by a recent change in the info files themselves by Stefan. Other, some substantially more severe, problems related to the existence of "secret text" (because for the user not extremely familiar with both the invisibility and display properties, that is exactly what it is) in info, remain. 1. Easiest one to fix: (info)Help-M which is used in the tutorial, *only* describes menus as they appear in the standalone info, not as they appear in the emacs version and the two are very different. A poor newbie, trying to use the tutorial to learn the Emacs version of info, will be completely confused, not because he is dumb, but because the information does not apply. This one, is, of course, relatively easy to fix. 2. The problem I described earlier with putting point on "* echo" (or similar) and doing M-x man. No colon in the text, no colon in the minibuffer prompt, no "invisible text" (just text with the display property), but: Error in process sentinel: Can't find the echo: manpage 3. Invisible text suddenly becomes visible when yanked inside an Emacs buffer (by default). Text with the display property does not when yanked in an Emacs buffer, but does when yanked into other applications. Try to make sense of that if you do not know about the invisibility property, yank-ignored-properties or the display property. (I would guess that most newbies or casual users do not know about any of these, let alone about all of them and their subtleties.) Some text appears completely out of nowhere when yanking into an Emacs buffer and then suddenly even more text appears when yanking it elsewhere. What is going on? 4. Both invisible text and text hidden by the display property becomes visible when copied to a file. The casual user has no idea what he is copying to file. 5. Last and definitely worst. The user copies part of the info buffer into an emacs mail buffer for somebody elses information. What the receiver receives is not what the sender believes he sent. Granted, the hidden text does not exactly consist of obscenities or such (although I did not yet try to read these node names backward to get all the Satanic messages), but this is still really bad. There are plenty of other potential problems, but the above five are representative. I have no problems with the way outline mode and C-x $ treat invisible text, the user chooses to make it invisible. But the presence of invisible text of any kind should always be made completely clear to the user. Otherwise, there is no limit to the problems that can arise. Possible solutions: 1. The most radical solution would be to make all of that text visible. End of all five problems, as well as of all related ones. Also makes the Emacs info look like the standalone one. Less to get used to for people who want to use both. 2. Actually erase the text (in the buffer) instead of making it invisible or giving it the display property. This might give problems for the `e' command, but editing using the `e' command does not seem like a very desirable thing to do anyway. 3. The least radical and probably most acceptable of the three: provide a convenient command to toggle between the "emacs view" and the "standalone view" by making not only the invisible text visible, but also removing the display property. But, in this case, one should make *really* sure that the user knows about the invisible text and about the command to make it visible. Sincerely, Luc.