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From: Ergus <spacibba@aol.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
Cc: Gregory Heytings <ghe@sdf.org>, casouri@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Interactive guide for new users
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2020 14:16:03 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20200912121603.bsp53vgfwj3y62in@Ergus> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <838sdfdzxo.fsf@gnu.org>

On Sat, Sep 12, 2020 at 01:58:27PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2020 10:35:06 +0000
>> From: Gregory Heytings <ghe@sdf.org>
>> cc: casouri@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
>>
>> >> SCREEN 2: "Set the color theme", with a clickable list containing the
>> >> (currently) 16 built-in themes.  A short code snippet above that list
>> >> illustrates how code is displayed with each of these themes.
>> >
>> > The snippet will only be able to show the buffer text appearance.  For
>> > other UI elements you will need an image.  Would using an image be
>> > better here?
>>
>> What do you mean by "other UI elements"?
>
>The mode line, the scroll bars, the menu and the tool bar.
>
>> >> [It would be nice to have a way to select a default font here, but I
>> >> don't know if that feasible.]
>> >
>> > I don't think I understand what you mean by that.  Selection of the
>> > default font _is_ possible, we have in the Options menu.
>>
>> Yes, but what I meant is to have a list of font names in the buffer, and
>> choosing a font by clicking on the font name.
>
>Why?  The Options menu item I've mentioned pops up the system's font
>selection dialog, which is way nicer than selecting a font from an
>Emacs buffer.  To say nothing of being less work.  What am I missing?
>
>> >> 2. disable tool-bar-mode
>> >> 3. disable scroll-bar-mode
>> >
>> > I'd object to these two.  We have just established that the former is
>> > important for newbies.  Scroll bars are presented by many applications,
>> > so why is it important to offer to turn them off here? let the users
>> > decide about these two.
>> >
>>
>> It's just an option.  In the video by Yuan Fu (
>> https://youtu.be/0qMskTAR2aw ) you'll see that this screen is a list of
>> checkboxes that the user can tick.
>
>My point is that we should not put there unimportant options, let
>alone those which we recommend not to change from the defaults.
>
We could add and extra optional SCREEN with advanced options. The user
can click next if done with the options in this page or advanced and go
for a more detailed and longer list of options.

Like a "SCREEN 2.1" to add many "unimportant" things with more
freedom. For example we can add here to enable show-trailing-whitespace,
fill-column-indicator, auto-revert-mode, visual-line-mode, ispell
dictionaries, desktop-save-mode.

All those are options not desirable in the SCREEN2, but could make sense
for users with some editing experience but not emacs experience.

WDYT?

>> >> 10. save-place-mode and desktop-save-mode
>> >
>> > desktop-save-mode slows down startup, so it might not be suitable for
>> > users who start Emacs many times a day.
>> >
>>
>> Again it's just an option, but again it's someting that users might want
>> to enable because it's a behavior that is common in text editors.
>
>There are thousands of options in Emacs that users might want to
>enable.  This initial guide should only show those which are very
>important, recommended, and usually expected.  Options that don't
>satisfy these criteria should IMO not be in the list, because the list
>must not be too long, or you will lose many newbies who don't have
>enough patience.
>
>> >> 11. (setq uniquify-buffer-name-style 'forward uniquify-min-dir-content 1024)
>> >
>> > Why? what's wrong with the defaults here?
>> >
>>
>> This has been discussed earlier in another thread, but the current
>> defaults (uniquify-buffer-name-style set to post-forward-angle-brackets)
>> is puzzling to most users, to say the least.  A complete file name is what
>> most users would expect here.
>
>A complete file name takes too much of the screen space on the mode
>line, IMO.  You'd need to make the font used by the mode-line face to
>be much smaller, and even then it will steal too much space.
>
>> >> 14. icomplete-mode (or fido-mode?)
>> >
>> > Not sure this is a good idea, these modes present complex and
>> > potentially confusing UI.
>> >
>>
>> Users expect to see completion mechanisms in a modern editor.  Enabling
>> completion in programming modes would be a too complex task for such an
>> initial greeting, but with this the user would become aware that
>> completion mechanisms exist in Emacs.
>
>Then perhaps we need to develop a new completion mechanism.  Which
>IDEs show completion like icomplete-mode?
>
Sublime and atom have a menu pretty similar to ours. A bit more
graphical oriented, but in the same "spirit".

>> I use icomplete-mode myself, and don't understand what you mean by
>> "complex and potentially confusing UI".
>
>Type "C-x C-f" and try to look at the result with the newbies' eyes.
>First question I have is "how to go on?"  <RIGHT> arrow doesn't work.
>If the font shows the bold letters distinct enough, I'd wonder what do
>the bold letters mean.  The order in which the files are shown doesn't
>necessarily make sense, nor does the fact that it mixes directories
>with files.  Etc. etc. -- the stuff I'd wonder about goes on and on.
>This is not the completion I find, e.g., in a Web browser, so prior
>experience will not help.
>
There are two options here:

1) Add more bindings to icomplete (arrows, C-n and so on)
2) Go for fido-mode which is more "friendly" like ido.

BTW Eli, I am working improving icomplete and the default
*Completions*. You can check the feature branches. If you have special
suggestions for them they are very welcome.

With my changes in *Completions* the experience is actually similar to
zsh completion...

And with icomplete I enabled the vertical layout (as helm or ivy do) and
added some coherent bindings.

What do you have in mind?

>> >> SCREEN 6: How to find help.  Short explanation about C-h C-h, C-h m,
>> >> C-h p, C-h k / C-h w / C-h a, C-h l.
>> >
>> > This misses important help commands, we should consider the list
>> > carefully with newbies in mind.  IMO, the various apropos commands are
>> > much more important for them than other help commands.
>> >
>>
>> Well, C-h C-h gives the complete list, and C-h a starts apropos.
>
>There are several apropos commands, and they are all very important
>for discoverability.
>



  parent reply	other threads:[~2020-09-12 12:16 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 174+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-09-08 18:48 Gather a list of confusions beginner tend to have Göktuğ Kayaalp
2020-09-08 19:30 ` Yuan Fu
2020-09-08 21:30   ` Praharsh Suryadevara
2020-09-09  3:51     ` Richard Stallman
2020-09-09 14:18       ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-09 14:24         ` Göktuğ Kayaalp
2020-09-09 15:07           ` Stefan Kangas
2020-09-09 16:09             ` Göktuğ Kayaalp
2020-09-09 16:23               ` Praharsh Suryadevara
2020-09-09 16:06           ` Praharsh Suryadevara
2020-09-11  4:13             ` Richard Stallman
2020-09-11  4:13         ` Richard Stallman
2020-09-11  4:41           ` Praharsh Suryadevara
2020-09-09  7:57     ` tomas
2020-09-10  2:40       ` Richard Stallman
2020-09-10  3:32         ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-10  8:29           ` tomas
2020-09-10  9:08             ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-10  9:34               ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-10 10:08                 ` tomas
2020-09-10  9:30             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-10 10:11               ` tomas
2020-09-11  4:18           ` Richard Stallman
2020-09-11  7:06             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-11 13:47               ` Stefan Monnier
2020-09-12  3:22               ` Richard Stallman
2020-09-12  3:46                 ` Emanuel Berg via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-10  8:28         ` tomas
2020-09-09 14:01   ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-10 23:20     ` Yuan Fu
2020-09-11  0:20       ` Interactive guide for new users (was: Re: Gather a list of confusions beginner tend to have) Stefan Kangas
2020-09-11  8:15         ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-11  9:47           ` Interactive guide for new users Phil Sainty
2020-09-11 14:04           ` Interactive guide for new users (was: Re: Gather a list of confusions beginner tend to have) Yuan Fu
2020-09-11 14:38             ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-11 14:49               ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-11 15:20                 ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-11 15:28                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-11 15:46                     ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-11 15:51                       ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-11 16:00                         ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-11 17:03                           ` Interactive guide for new users Robert Pluim
2020-09-11 17:23                             ` Emanuel Berg via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-11 17:36                               ` Robert Pluim
2020-09-11 17:39                                 ` Emanuel Berg via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-11 18:43                           ` Interactive guide for new users (was: Re: Gather a list of confusions beginner tend to have) Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-11 19:48                             ` Ergus
2020-09-12  6:02                               ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-12  9:33                                 ` Ergus
2020-09-13 12:13                                   ` Interactive guide for new users Philip K.
2020-09-11 18:59                           ` FW: Interactive guide for new users (was: Re: Gather a list of confusions beginner tend to have) Drew Adams
2020-09-11 17:47                       ` Göktuğ Kayaalp
2020-09-11 17:53                         ` Emanuel Berg via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-11 18:04                         ` Praharsh Suryadevara
2020-09-12 11:16                         ` Interactive guide for new users Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-09-12 14:26                           ` Göktuğ Kayaalp
2020-09-12 14:55                             ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-12 15:10                               ` Göktuğ Kayaalp
2020-09-12 15:18                                 ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-13 18:12               ` Juri Linkov
2020-09-11 14:02         ` Interactive guide for new users (was: Re: Gather a list of confusions beginner tend to have) Yuan Fu
2020-09-12  9:31         ` Interactive guide for new users Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-12  9:55           ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-12 10:35             ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-12 10:52               ` Ergus
2020-09-12 10:58               ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-12 11:34                 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-09-12 12:00                 ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-12 12:21                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-12 13:56                     ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-12 14:07                       ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-12 12:54                   ` Ergus
2020-09-12 12:16                 ` Ergus [this message]
2020-09-12 12:34                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-12 13:18                     ` Ergus
2020-09-12 13:43                       ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-12 14:17                         ` Ergus
2020-09-12 14:36                           ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-12 14:55                             ` Ergus
2020-09-12 16:25                             ` Ergus
2020-09-12 17:17                               ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-12 17:21                                 ` Yuan Fu
2020-09-12 17:39                                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-12 18:36                                   ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-12 20:05                                     ` Ergus
2020-09-13  0:01                         ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-09-13  2:35                           ` Ergus
2020-09-13 17:56                             ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-09-13 22:10                               ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-14 11:20                                 ` Thibaut Verron
2020-09-14 23:42                                   ` E
2020-09-15  7:40                                     ` Ergus
2020-09-15 23:40                                       ` E
2020-09-15 12:10                                   ` Stephen Leake
2020-09-15 12:22                                     ` Thibaut Verron
2020-09-15 23:33                                     ` E
2020-09-13 18:01                             ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-09-13 18:20                             ` Tim Van den Langenbergh
2020-09-13 21:10                               ` Ergus
2020-09-13  7:14                           ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-13 14:04                           ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-13 16:38                             ` John Yates
2020-09-13 16:51                               ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-13 17:39                               ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-09-14 12:41                                 ` John Yates
2020-09-14 15:28                                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-15  1:42                                     ` John Yates
2020-09-15  7:00                                       ` Göktuğ Kayaalp
2020-09-16  3:30                                         ` John Yates
2020-09-16 10:14                                           ` Göktuğ Kayaalp
2020-09-15 14:15                                       ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-14 22:28                                   ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-09-13 17:47                             ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-09-14 14:17                             ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-26  9:16               ` Elias Mårtenson
2020-09-26  9:31                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-26 14:38                 ` Drew Adams
2020-09-26 15:13                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-26 16:33                     ` Drew Adams
2020-09-26 16:39                   ` Andreas Schwab
2020-09-26 16:57                     ` Drew Adams
2020-09-26 16:01                 ` Jean Louis
2020-09-12 11:02             ` Göktuğ Kayaalp
2020-09-12 12:12               ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-14 10:52               ` Robert Pluim
2020-09-19 15:20         ` Interactive guide for new users (was: Re: Gather a list of confusions beginner tend to have) Eduardo Mercovich
2020-09-19 17:02           ` Drew Adams
2020-09-21 14:50             ` Eduardo Mercovich
2020-09-21 16:07               ` Drew Adams
2020-09-21 21:40                 ` Eduardo Mercovich
2020-09-21 23:03                   ` Drew Adams
2020-09-22  3:40                 ` Richard Stallman
2020-09-22  9:06                   ` Interactive guide for new users Philip K.
2020-09-23  3:40                     ` Richard Stallman
2020-09-23 12:49                       ` Philip K.
2020-09-24  1:32                         ` Richard Stallman
2020-09-26  3:13                           ` Okam
2020-09-22 14:06                   ` Stefan Monnier
2020-09-28  9:24                   ` Po Lu
2020-09-29  3:29                     ` Richard Stallman
2020-09-19 17:16           ` Philip K.
2020-09-19 17:25             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-19 18:09               ` Eduardo Mercovich
2020-09-19 18:39                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-19 21:43                   ` Eduardo Mercovich
2020-09-20  5:52                     ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-21 22:15                       ` Eduardo Mercovich
2020-09-22 13:56                         ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-23 12:54                           ` Eduardo Mercovich
2020-09-23 13:28                             ` Caio Henrique
2020-09-23 13:42                               ` Eduardo Mercovich
2020-09-23 14:16                             ` Stefan Kangas
2020-09-23 14:58                             ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-23 23:14                               ` Yuan Fu
2020-09-30 13:20                                 ` Eduardo Mercovich
2020-09-30 14:11                                   ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-19 17:53             ` Eduardo Mercovich
2020-09-20  9:26               ` Philip K.
2020-09-21 21:48                 ` Eduardo Mercovich
2020-09-11  6:45       ` Gather a list of confusions beginner tend to have Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-11  8:51         ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-09-11  8:59           ` Emanuel Berg via Emacs development discussions.
2020-09-11 13:52         ` Yuan Fu
2020-09-11 14:01           ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-11 14:27           ` Stefan Monnier
2020-09-09  2:01 ` Nick Savage
2020-09-09 14:48   ` Göktuğ Kayaalp
2020-09-10  2:36 ` Richard Stallman
2020-09-10 10:07   ` Göktuğ Kayaalp
2020-09-10 17:28     ` Drew Adams
2020-09-10 21:17       ` Göktuğ Kayaalp
     [not found] <<875z8ortot.fsf@gkayaalp.com>
     [not found] ` <<D09D40C2-FF5C-4D1B-A030-C710297C1AE0@gmail.com>
     [not found]   ` <<83lfhjkq0r.fsf@gnu.org>
     [not found]     ` <<8620B5CD-CA92-46BF-80A8-DBE7052F4CA6@gmail.com>
     [not found]       ` <<CADwFkm=GQqZ2e07QuC582T-MNhi1Xo4OPsMTYbQHH9gD7h6QnA@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]         ` <<alpine.NEB.2.22.394.2009120917260453.23267@sdf.lonestar.org>
     [not found]           ` <<83d02re2uk.fsf@gnu.org>
2020-09-12 16:25             ` Interactive guide for new users Drew Adams
2020-09-13  4:34               ` Ihor Radchenko
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2020-09-29 11:11 Itai Efrat

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