From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: New start up splash screen annoyance... Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 23:33:00 +0200 Message-ID: <85abrskhv7.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> References: <87sl5n5yem.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <87fy1nbe4f.fsf@jurta.org> <87sl5m4fsc.fsf@stupidchicken.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1189546458 9755 80.91.229.12 (11 Sep 2007 21:34:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:34:18 +0000 (UTC) Cc: juri@jurta.org, wilde@sha-bang.de, cyd@stupidchicken.com, Leo , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Sep 11 23:34:15 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IVDMv-0002L2-UY for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 11 Sep 2007 23:34:02 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IVDMv-0000hG-Ul for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 11 Sep 2007 17:34:01 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IVDM6-0008JS-Ga for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Sep 2007 17:33:10 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IVDM5-0008Ik-13 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Sep 2007 17:33:10 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IVDM4-0008Ih-Kg for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Sep 2007 17:33:08 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-in-03.arcor-online.net ([151.189.21.43]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IVDLz-0003QA-ST; Tue, 11 Sep 2007 17:33:04 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-in-03-z2.arcor-online.net (mail-in-03-z2.arcor-online.net [151.189.8.15]) by mail-in-03.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 628982CAED4; Tue, 11 Sep 2007 23:33:02 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from mail-in-03.arcor-online.net (mail-in-03.arcor-online.net [151.189.21.43]) by mail-in-03-z2.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 541BE2D378F; Tue, 11 Sep 2007 23:33:02 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from lola.goethe.zz (dslb-084-061-051-091.pools.arcor-ip.net [84.61.51.91]) by mail-in-03.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 28C8830A94C; Tue, 11 Sep 2007 23:33:02 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: by lola.goethe.zz (Postfix, from userid 1002) id 7E10E1CAD718; Tue, 11 Sep 2007 23:33:01 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: (Richard Stallman's message of "Tue\, 11 Sep 2007 16\:31\:05 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.1.50 (gnu/linux) X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.91.2/4243/Tue Sep 11 17:15:41 2007 on mail-in-03.arcor-online.net X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Detected-Kernel: Linux 2.4-2.6 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:78609 Archived-At: Richard Stallman writes: > Experienced users don't use startup screen anyway. But we are trying to > make newbies happy. > > Not exactly. We are trying to make sure newbies see some of this > information, even if it makes them a little less happy. The way to win people's heart is not by making them unhappy. "Welcome! To learn about Emacs, press F1 C-a or use the Help/About menu." Use an idle-timer to make sure that for the first 30 seconds of idleness, regardless how Emacs has been started, this message is not obscured for longer than 5 seconds (of course, unless the startup screen _is_ actually being displayed which would be the default for an Emacs started without command line options and not, say, loading a desktop or doing other startup operations ending in a dedicated buffer). It may take weeks before the user visits the screen. But when he does, the important thing is that he does it because _he_ chooses to do so. So he'll be in a reasonably open frame of mind. And we want him in a reasonably open frame of mind to teach him about GNU. The worst epithet used for some kind of obnoxiously advertising software is "nagware". We don't want to be grouped along with them if we can avoid it at reasonable cost, and not permitting the user to see the file he has explicitly specified to be seen is right in that ballpark. And "people will recognize that everything's different when we do it because we are the good guys" never works. Not in government, not in software. It does not matter whether we are the good guys or not: people will hate us for it. And that does not help our cause. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum