Re: describe-bindings: ^L, bad order, naming

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

>> I use (aset standard-display-table ?\f (vconcat (make-vector 64 ?-) "^L"))
>> to display the page delimiter as a horizontal line, and this is
>> very helpful not only in the *Help* buffer, but in other places
>> too, including source code buffers.
>
> This would have global implications, right?
> The idea with an overlay could easily work locally, and it's prettier
> as well.

Yes, this affect everything.  Instead of that, in the Help buffer
overlays or text properties could be used locally.

>>> Couldn't there be a list of all groups in the beginning, with links
>>> going to the bindings belonging to the group?
>>
>> Like in the *Help* buffer created by `C-h m'?
>
> Yup. That would be fine.
> Outline mode, as suggested by Eli, is OK only if it doesn't require
> people to know some keys in order to even look up the keys.

By default, Outline mode is harmless and doesn't require to know its
keys to read the Help buffer.  Advanced users should know Outline keys
to use it and to hide/show uninteresting parts.  So it doesn't harm to set
outline-regexp and enable outline-minor-mode on the Help buffer.

I imagine that code like below could be used to enable Outline minor mode
and to add a horizontal line to page breaks:

(defadvice describe-bindings (after my-describe-bindings activate)
  (with-current-buffer "*Help*"
    (save-excursion
      (let ((inhibit-read-only t))
        (goto-char (point-min))
        (while (re-search-forward "^\^L$" nil t)
          (put-text-property (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0)
                             'display (concat (make-string 64 ?-) "^L")))))
    (set (make-local-variable 'outline-regexp) "^.*:$")
    (outline-minor-mode 1)))

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/