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: Re: Problems with info (emacs version) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 23:45:56 -0500 (CDT) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <200306030445.h534juk24570@eel.dms.auburn.edu> References: <200306020333.h523XMC23468@eel.dms.auburn.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1054615893 31824 80.91.224.249 (3 Jun 2003 04:51:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 04:51:33 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Tue Jun 03 06:51:31 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 19N3lj-0008HA-00 for ; Tue, 03 Jun 2003 06:51:31 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 19N42f-0000FV-00 for ; Tue, 03 Jun 2003 07:09:01 +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 19N3mI-000669-QY for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Tue, 03 Jun 2003 00:52:06 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19N3lj-0005q5-9M for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Jun 2003 00:51:31 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19N3lf-0005na-CU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Jun 2003 00:51:28 -0400 Original-Received: from manatee.dms.auburn.edu ([131.204.53.104]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19N3gE-0002pA-1l; Tue, 03 Jun 2003 00:45:50 -0400 Original-Received: from eel.dms.auburn.edu (eel.dms.auburn.edu [131.204.53.108]) h534jnoc006733; Mon, 2 Jun 2003 23:45:49 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: (from teirllm@localhost) by eel.dms.auburn.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.11.6) id h534juk24570; Mon, 2 Jun 2003 23:45:56 -0500 (CDT) X-Authentication-Warning: eel.dms.auburn.edu: teirllm set sender to teirllm@dms.auburn.edu using -f Original-To: rms@gnu.org In-reply-to: (message from Richard Stallman on Tue, 03 Jun 2003 00:06:44 -0400) 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:14615 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:14615 Richard Stallman wrote: 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. Would you please tell me the specific differences? I scanned through that none and did not notice anything incorrect. Yes. From (info)Help-M: * Foo: Node about FOO. This tells about FOO. The subtopic name is Foo, and the node describing it is `Node about FOO'. The rest of the line is just for the reader's Information. [[ But this line is not a real menu item, simply because there is no line above it which starts with `* Menu:'.]] When you use a menu to go to another node (in a way that will be described soon), what you specify is the subtopic name, the first thing in the menu line. Info uses it to find the menu line, extracts the node name from it, and goes to that node. The reason that there is both a subtopic name and a node name is that the node name must be meaningful to the computer and may therefore have to be ugly looking. The subtopic name can be chosen just to be convenient for the user to specify. Often the node name is convenient for the user to specify and so both it and the subtopic name are the same. There is an abbreviation for this: * Foo:: This tells about FOO. This means that the subtopic name and node name are the same; they are both `Foo'. My own remarks: Note that this goes into quite some length explaining why the user sees both a "*Foo:" and a "Node about Foo" and what the difference is, but the user using Emacs, sees only: "*Foo". Nowhere is it told that ": Node about FOO" is normally invisible in Emacs. The user looks for it, can not find it and does not know what is going on. * Foo:: This tells about FOO. This means that the subtopic name and node name are the same; they are both `Foo'. Again, only: * Foo is visible in Emacs, not the "::" The Emacs info user has no idea what all of this stuff about special meaning of "::" is about. Of course, the entire discussion *is* correct if you know about the invisible text. One would not have to make a lot of changes in the documentation if one would provide the user with convenient commands in Info to toggle invisibility, say `v'. All one would have to do would be to tell the user that in Emacs you first have to type `v' to see the text being talked about. I could easily implement such a visibility toggling feature myself, if you would agree with it. Sincerely, Luc.