Re: describe-mode's treatment of minor-modes is annoying

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

On Tue, May 04, 2004 at 01:58:35PM -0700, Drew Adams wrote:
> Instead of using separate pages in the same buffer, why not use separate
> incarnations of the *Help* buffer. `C-h m' would display just a one-liner
> about each mode in *Help*, with a link for each mode (part or all of the
> one-liner) to its detailed description:
> 
>  Major mode
>   SQL[oracle] mode: Major mode to edit SQL.
> 
>  Minor modes
>   Font-Lock minor mode (no indicator): Toggle Font Lock mode.
>   ...
> 
> If there are no minor modes, just show the major-mode doc directly.

I think that the major-mode doc should _always_ be displayed.  In most cases
I think that's what people are interested in, and _always_ having to follow a
hyperlink to get at it would just be annoying (and I think in practice it
would be _always_, too, as there's usually some random minor mode or another
turned on).

However, maybe it would be a good idea to separate the minor mode
descriptions as you say, and just include a hyper link that described them
(using the format I gave in my earlier message, with a single line at the
beginning of the major-mode description).  There could be a [back] button at
the beginning of the minor-mode help to allow easily jumping back and forth.

That way it wouldn't waste any time formatting all that minor mode stuff in
the common case, and a user could even invoke `describe-minor-modes'
directly if that's what he was really interested in.

Hmmm, I like it...

-Miles
-- 
`Suppose Korea goes to the World Cup final against Japan and wins,' Moon said.
`All the past could be forgiven.'   [NYT]