From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Proposal for an improved `help-for-help' Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2021 16:50:09 +0300 Message-ID: <83zgy8997y.fsf@gnu.org> References: <838s7hxqkr.fsf@gnu.org> <83mtua9isw.fsf@gnu.org> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="6149"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stefan Kangas Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Thu Apr 08 15:54:25 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1lUV72-0001TR-T6 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 08 Apr 2021 15:54:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:53980 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lUV71-0007vg-VH for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 08 Apr 2021 09:54:23 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:35496) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lUV3Y-00054Z-JT for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 08 Apr 2021 09:50:49 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:41813) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lUV3X-0001RW-Ea; Thu, 08 Apr 2021 09:50:47 -0400 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.95.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.95]:3642 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1lUV3G-000165-6L; Thu, 08 Apr 2021 09:50:32 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from Stefan Kangas on Thu, 8 Apr 2021 08:35:06 -0500) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:267613 Archived-At: > From: Stefan Kangas > Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2021 08:35:06 -0500 > Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org > > >> + '(("Getting Help" > > > > I'd use something like "Describe and Find Commands, Keys, Functions". > > That's fine, but it is a bit long. Why is it a problem to be long? > I suggest "Basic Help" here, which contrasts nicely against the > other headings. (Please see the attached screenshot.) Both "getting Help" and "Basic Help" is too general to be useful, IMO. > >> + ("info" nil "Show all included manuals") > > > > That's inaccurate. "Show top-level menu of all installed manuals", > > perhaps? > > (Just to point out that the old text also said "included" but you are > correct that "installed" is more precise.) > > Do we need to speak of "top-level menu", or can we get away with the > shorter "Show all installed manuals"? But "show a manual" could be interpreted as displaying the contents of that manual, in which case "show all manuals" makes no sense. What that "shows" is a menu, not the manuals. If you want, you could use "show the list of manuals", but I felt that "menu" is more accurate, as it hints that the user could select one of those manuals from that menu. > Also, Howard Melman pointed out that "Info" is actually the mnemonic for > "i" here so perhaps we should actually speak of info here (even though > we don't do it in the headline)? IOW, how about "Show all installed > Info manuals"? I think I explained elsewhere why I think using "Info" in that screen is not the best idea: newbies won't know what that means. > (BTW, I think we should generally avoid using the "menu" terminology to > mean something other than top menus (i.e. `menu-bar-mode'). I know we > do it in many places in Emacs, but I find it unfortunate and confusing.) But it _is_ a menu, albeit not a drop-down menu. It says "Menu" right there at the beginning, and explains how to select a manual from the menu. So the user who selects that command will see immediately that a menu is indeed displayed. > >> + ("Misc Help" > > > > "Other Help commands" > > > >> + ("Help Files" > > > > "Misc" > > > >> + ("Language Help" > > > > "I18n Help" > > I'm basically fine with all that, but just to point out that we have in > the Info manual these sections: > > * Language Help:: Help relating to international language support. > * Misc Help:: Other help commands. > * Help Files:: Commands to display auxiliary help files. Node names (as opposed to names of the corresponding sections) are not a recommended source of good names: they are selected for brevity, and thus frequently sacrifice accuracy and expressive power. The section's name in the first case is more reasonable: "Help for International Language Support". (Although "international language" sounds awkward to me.) > I am also not sure that "I18n" is clear to all our users, in particular > non-programmers. It is clear from context of course, but some users > might find the abbreviation cryptic. Perhaps "Internationalization" is > better, if a bit long. "Internationalization" is fine. Thanks.