Re: Horrible new unsaved buffers dialog

[Phil Sainty <psainty@orcon.net.nz>]

On 2022-01-29 02:55, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> The old dialog box was incomprehensible and user hostile.

I think the old dialog box was for the *most* part both
comprehensible and (by providing useful options) user friendly.

The button I'd consider removing is "save this but no more",
because the user isn't being shown which other buffers that
will affect.  Of course "No for all" is the same, but the
latter is saying "I don't care about this session" whereas
the former suggests that the user does care about the session
to some extent.  Others might disagree, though.

"View this buffer and quit" is a useful button, but worded
in a confusing way, as "quit" could either mean "exit emacs"
or "do not exit emacs".  The "exit emacs" interpretation
doesn't make a lot of sense in context, and yet if the user
doesn't *want* to exit emacs they are going to be hesitant
to make assumptions.  Perhaps "Edit this buffer" would be a
better label.

I think that everything else is both useful and very clear.

The new dialog is unquestionably a lot simpler, but I don't
think that's a good thing.  If the reason for this change is
that other programs don't have "quit" dialogs which are useful
as the Emacs version, I don't think that's a good reason to
make the Emacs version less useful.  I would instead argue
that other programs would benefit from more useful dialogs.

I think the original dialog could be improved by making it
more *sophisticated* by providing the user with an overview
of all the unsaved buffers, but IMO this extreme simplification
is a step backwards.

The original dialog provided a streamlined way for the user
to do all the sorts of things which they will likely need
to do in this situation.  By removing those options you haven't
removed the user's need to do those things, but you've made
it harder for them to do it.


-Phil