Re: Control help- and Info-mode buffers from other buffers

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com>
> Date: Tue, 30 May 2023 07:38:54 +0200
> 
> I would like to be able to control Info and Help buffers from other buffers, to
> lessen switch between windows.
> 
> All commands are (should be) completely backwards compatible, so when called
> from within help- and Info-mode buffers, they should act as before the
> patch. Some rudimentary error checking is performed to ensure that user has a
> visible help- and Info-bufers. Mouse commands are not touched (should not be
> needed).
> 
> This patch also introduces two defcustomed prefix keys for help- and
> Info-mode-map, so they can be assigned a prefix key. I have used somewhat
> cumbersome to use, C-h M-h for help-mode-map, and C-h M-i Info-mode-map as
> prefix keys. I personally use M-h and M-i as prefixes, but those are already
> assigned by default, and since I do understand the conseervative nature of the
> list, I prefer to default to something cumbersome and let user remap to anything
> they find suitable. These are just suggestions. It is also completely valid to
> not define any prefix key, and leave that code completely out, but a
> pre-defined prefix key does suggest a certain usage pattern.

This is a useful feature, especially the *Help* buffer part (I tend to
have a separate frame for Info manuals visible at all times).  But to
be really useful, the key bindings must be very easy and convenient to
type, because otherwise people will keep switching to the *Help*
window and doing it from there.  And "C-h M-h" is not easy to type.  I
hope we will be able to find an easier-typed prefix.

> The defcustom init funciton to read user key is adapted from Helm, I am not sure
> how/if that works with copyrights (I have signed myself, and this re-uses a
> relatively small piece of code out of Helm).

This is actually unfortunate.  I'd suggest that you rewrite those
parts from scratch, using just the general ideas, because otherwise I
envision it to be hard for us to accept the code.

> Perhaps it might be natural to expect this to work even with multiple frames,
> but it does not. I am not sure what workflow would be, should user be switched
> to the frame containing the help/info buffer, or should buffer be openend in a
> new frame?

Why does it matter whether a *Help* or *Info* buffer is shown on
another frame?  Emacs can be told to select a window showing a buffer
either on the selected frame, or on any frame, AFAIR.

Thanks.