Re: Some developement questions

[Ergus <spacibba@aol.com>]

On Tue, Sep 04, 2018 at 02:58:53PM +0200, Phillip Lord wrote:
>Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>
>>> My hope was to do something a bit more intelligent with it -- with some
>>> screen shots and rich text, as well as highlighting for menu items, so I
>>> wrote it in org-mode. Alas I haven't had the time to actually integrate
>>> it into Emacs.
>>>
>>> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/phillord/emacs-tutorial/master/tutorial.org
>>>
>>> If someone has the time to do the integration it's nearly ready to
>>> go. To my mind, updating the tutorial would be a good thing just because
>>> it would give the impression that it is updateable, rather than a thing
>>> set in stone.
>>
>> Thanks.  That tutorial looks like a somewhat expanded version of our
>> TUTORIAL; e.g., it has almost the same scope in terms of Emacs
>> features.  I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that we were talking about a
>> tutorial for the next step -- for those who have read the original
>> TUTORIAL and want to learn about more advanced issues related to text
>> editing.
>
>It covers some never stuff, but yes, it is fairly similar. Personally, I
>would like to ditch all the "how to move around" with keys stuff -- this
>scares most people to hell, because they think that they need to learn
>this to do something that they already know how to do these things.
>
I thing mentioning that move with arrows + keybindings is possible and
would be a more elegant approach. Because some users know how to move in
bash or will find it interesting/useful to know that C-a, C-e, C-d, C-j,
C-i and so on are useful also in bash. (Also to tribute the history a
little bit). For example, vim has its terrible bindings, they mention in
the tutorial and some people like them because they feel more geek using
them.

Some of them are easier to access in some keyboards (C-d in my case for
example). So maybe a table could have two columns with the
traditional and the "modern" alternative. And let the user choose (or mix).

>In terms of advanced issues, my thought was to enable tutorial
>extensions to go into ELPA and then have a navigational structure. The
>current tutorial for the even trivial reason that it's flat.
>
The tutorial should mention how to add packages or at least introduce
the concepts (package, repository, extension, elpa, melpa), and a bit
less of history. But just at the very end in order to create some
expectations in the new user.

Even if it is only to mention as an approximation, and let the
practical things in the manual.

Personally I don't like the navigational structure because the simpler
structure is better for the tutorial until the user can do the basics. A
tutorial should feel like being inside emacs already as everyday.

>Phil
>