Re: Initial splash screen

[Stephen Berman <Stephen.Berman@gmx.net>]

On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 08:42:10 +0200 David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:

> Stephen Berman <Stephen.Berman@gmx.net> writes:
>
>> On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:53:29 -0400 Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I won't reject this, but I am not sure if it is really more
>>> convenient.  To have to answer the question may be more
>>> inconvenient than to be shown the splash screen.  People will say
>>> "turn it off" because they don't want to be asked the question, not
>>> because of the splash screen itself.
>>
>> You may be right; I don't know.  But at least the question can force
>> them to take notice of the splash screen.
>
> There is a name for an interface forcibly stopping people from
> starting to work before they have presumably perused something: it is
> "nagware".  We should focus on making Emacs convenient for people, not
> making people convenient for Emacs.  The latter does not work, anyway.

You may be right that it doesn't work, I don't know; but I don't think
this form of nagging is any (or at least notably) worse than others
set by default in Emacs but that can be turned off by users.  And
again (and for the last time!), I am suggesting that the opportunity
to turn this off be immediately provided, and in the context of
showing the important information.  However, ...

> Personally, I'd use (message "Check the \"Help/About Emacs\" menu
> entry for basic usage pointers.")  when Emacs is started with file
> names on the command line.

... this is a good idea, and I agree better than showing the splash
screen (at least after the first invocation by a user).  Whether the
message gets shown should also be configurable.

Steve Berman