From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Have you all gone crazy? Was: On being web-friendly and why info must die Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:43:33 +0200 Message-ID: <831tnrr8pm.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87388bnzha.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <87k31mdbhe.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87tx0qiv45.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87h9wqd3i5.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87fvc8kdsp.fsf@gnu.org> <6e11cd85-09a0-4b7a-baa2-0c810bdebbce@default> <871tnsg0w7.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <834msoqrsg.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1419263053 31725 80.91.229.3 (22 Dec 2014 15:44:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 15:44:13 +0000 (UTC) Cc: lennart.borgman@gmail.com, adatgyujto@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Yuri Khan Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Dec 22 16:44:04 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Y359P-0006Vm-Th for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 16:44:04 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:41013 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y359P-00030w-A4 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 10:44:03 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38414) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y359G-0002z5-5a for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 10:44:00 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y359A-0003Rs-6i for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 10:43:54 -0500 Original-Received: from mtaout28.012.net.il ([80.179.55.184]:38676) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y3599-0003Ro-Oi for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 10:43:48 -0500 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.mtaout28.012.net.il by mtaout28.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0NGZ00C00Q8WB100@mtaout28.012.net.il> for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:41:32 +0200 (IST) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([87.69.4.28]) by mtaout28.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0NGZ002LVQ98YD80@mtaout28.012.net.il>; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:41:32 +0200 (IST) In-reply-to: X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 80.179.55.184 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:180505 Archived-At: > Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 12:25:19 +0700 > From: Yuri Khan > Cc: Eli Zaretskii , Tom ,=20 > =09Emacs-Devel devel >=20 > I use Google to search for information about Emacs, unless I know > exactly what I=E2=80=99m looking for. That's a mistake. The Info's 'i' command is precisely the means to use when you do NOT know exactly what you are looking for. I urge yo= u to try that next time: at 'i's prompt type some word or phrase that you think relates to the subject you are after, and see what happens. You can also use TAB to see possible completions, once you've typed some part of the subject. If the first hit is not what you want, typ= e ',' to see more hits. The Info manuals are indexed up front with this usage pattern in mind= , and you'd be surprised how efficient this search can be. Well, with good manuals, anyway. (Emacs manuals are good.) We add index entrie= s all the time to continuously improve the indexing. > On the other hand, when my question is more like =E2=80=9CHow do I = in > Emacs=E2=80=9D, I=E2=80=99m not specifically looking for a page in = the Emacs manual. > Rather, I want a page in the manual, plus a range of ways how other > people do X, and a range of opinions on why X is the wrong thing to > want to do. Google gives me that. Info doesn=E2=80=99t. *By searchi= ng with > Google, I extend the scope of my search beyond the Emacs manual.* You also get a load of crap. Just sifting through all that trying to make up your mind what is true and what's wrong will take you on a small research trip. Instead, start with looking up the subject in the manual, using the 'i' command and the hyper-links in the nodes where 'i' takes you. _Then_, after you know what the manuals say, by all means use Google or some other search engine to expand your knowledge. The difference is that you no longer need to find the documentation itself, just how the feature is used and what are its alternatives (some of that is also in the manual, btw). > Additionally, the HTML rendition of the Emacs manual is more > convenient to read for me, because of these differences: >=20 > * The HTML version wraps to the size of my browser. The Info versio= n > is hard-wrapped for 72 columns. I encourage you (or anyone else) to enhance info.el, which will remov= e or hide the newlines from the explanatory text, and then use word-wra= p and wrap-prefix to get the same effect as you see in HTML browsers. (Not that I understand why it would be more readable to have the description in 200-column lines, but if someone wants such a feature, why not?) The only not-entirely-trivial part here is to identify the lines where the newlines should be kept, like examples, list items, etc. But there are enough clues in the text to identify those, in th= e same manner as we identify the section headings. > * The HTML version uses my preferred proportional font for prose an= d > my preferred monospace font for code. The Info version is monospace > throughout, except for headings. Likewise: should be easy to do this for Info. Patches are welcome. > * The HTML version uses text styles to highlight different kinds of > text (keys, commands, paths, arguments, etc.). The Info version use= s > the spacing grave accent and the straight single quote and all-caps > formatting. > * The HTML version uses typographic quotes =E2=80=9C=E2=80=9D. The = Info version uses > straight quotes "". Some of this is simply untrue nowadays, I guess you haven't looked at an Info manual for a few years. The rest (like using CAPS for arguments) is again not too hard to teach Info to do. Once more, patches welcome. > To summarize the above, the HTML version =E2=80=9Cfeels like=E2= =80=9D an electronic > version of a well-typeset printed book. The Info version feels like= an > electronic version of a samizdat book typed on a typewriter. > *Readability counts.* If this is an itch to scratch, I invite you and others to scratch it. Should be a fine project, and not a hard one, either. Volunteers are welcome. > * Firefox provides pixelwise autoscrolling on middle mouse button, = and > opens links in new tabs when middle-clicked. Emacs Info has no > pixelwise scrolling Emacs does support pixelwise scrolling, you can see it in action when scrolling a large image or very large text. Making this work for "normal" text is not hard, it's just that no one did it. Again, volunteers are welcome. (I can provide hints and help on this one, i= f necessary.) > no autoscrolling Not sure what that means. Emacs certainly auto-scrolls when point enters the scroll-margin. > and prefers to have no more than one *info* buffer. Not true. I have between 40 and 50 *info* buffers in my Emacs sessio= n at any given time (I wrote the info-display-manual command to help me manage them efficiently), and see no problems with that. > Replacing the Info output format with HTML and replacing the Emacs > Info browser with an Emacs HTML-Info browser might help with the > readability issue. As was written many times here, HTML-Info browser you are talking about doesn't exist. It needs to be coded first. Existing HTML browsers lack a few important features, they were identified in these discussions. It is not useful to compare a live, working program wit= h an _idea_ of a program. It certainly makes no sense to claim the ide= a is much better than the program. > Improving the Emacs display engine might provide a better reading > experience. The Emacs display engine doesn't need to be improved to support the features you miss. What we need is motivated individual(s) who would sit down and code this in Lisp using _existing_ features. I hope you will be that volunteer, or that someone else will come soon, because frankly, I enjoy much more seeing Emacs improve and helping others improve it than talk-talk-talk about that. > But the search scope issue requires an all-encompassing Web search > engine. I suggest to give another chance to the Info's 'i' command. You migh= t even like it. If the initial experience is not good enough, come bac= k and tell why, maybe we could help; after all, using Google efficientl= y also takes some practice. (FWIW, I usually land right on the spot using 'i' on my first attempt, sometimes the second, and it's not because I remember all the index entries by heart, far from it.) Please note that I never said Info is a replacement for searching the net. That is a red herring. What I am saying is that whenever you need accurate information about some Emacs feature, you should first look up its description in the manuals. Then, armed with that knowledge, go search the net for more info, if you need to. Most probably your Google query will be different if you follow this paradigm. Btw, if you, or someone else, are ambitious, I can suggest a larger and more challenging project: add a front end to Info's search capabilities that can accept queries in more-or-less natural language= , not unlike Google. Examples of such queries: . "how do I do SOMETHING?" . "what is THAT-THING?" . "look for SUBJECT but excluding THIS-CRAP" etc. Bonus points for maintaining a database of user-specific preferences and personal style of queries, and applying that to futur= e queries. Interested?