Re: Emacs undo behavior frustrating for new users. (WAS: delete-selection-mode as default)

[Joost Kremers <joostkremers@fastmail.fm>]

On Sun, Oct 14 2018, Karl Fogel wrote:
> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>>  > 1. Emacs undo is frustrating for most new users.
>>
>>If that is true, it is an important issue.
>>What evidence is there for that statement?
>>If so, do we know why it is so?
>
> Here is an answer from my friend Noel, who was recently a new 
> user of Emacs.  (He still uses Emacs, he's just no longer a new 
> user.)  When I saw your question above, I remembered Noel's 
> frustration with Emacs's default undo behavior when he was 
> learning Emacs, and I asked him if he'd be willing to write it 
> up.

Personally, I'm also not very fond of Emacs' standard undo system, 
even though I appreciate the fact that past states of the buffer 
don't get lost, unlike the more common MS-Word undo/redo system. 
It's a little surprising to me, though, that this discussion comes 
up, because I thought the difficulties of Emacs' undo system for 
new users are well-known, and moreover, the solution is already on 
GNU ELPA in the form of the `undo-tree' package: 

<https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/undo-tree.html>

In short, undo-tree gives Emacs the common undo/redo system, but 
with an Emacs twist: instead of a single, linear, history of 
changes, in which previously "undone" states are lost when you 
edit the text in any way, are not lost but stored as separate 
branches. So the history of changes is not a single, linear line, 
it's a tree. One path in this tree is current, meaning undo/redo 
will move over it, but you can switch branches to access states 
that would have been lost by MS Word.

The package comes with a visualiser that shows you the tree and 
that updates the buffer when you walk it, making it very easy to 
get back to any state of the buffer's edit history. It also has 
some other niceties, such as time stamps and diff display.

The beauty of the package is that a new user can simply use 
undo/redo in the way they[1] are familiar with, but the entire 
power of Emacs' undo system is there when needed.

IMvHO `undo-tree' should simply be made the default undo in Emacs.

Joost



[1] Sorry, Richard! :-)

-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments