RE: File menu changes (suggestions) / Options menu

[David Reitter <david.reitter@gmail.com>]

Drew Adams wrote:

> 1. "Save Buffer As" runs command `write-file'. Where's the beef - er -
> "buffer"?
> 2. "Save (current buffer)" runs command `save-buffer'.
> 3. "Close (current buffer)" runs command `kill-this-buffer'.
> 4. "Revert Buffer" runs command `revert-buffer'.

It doesn't matter what command names are behind the menu entries.  
Some of the command names seem inconsistent anyways, and a user  
doesn't necessarily care for command names. A user wants to save the  
current buffer. She can either save it, or save it "as" something.  
Hence, the menu entries should be "Save" and "Save as...". If we need  
to inform the user how to do the same thing with keyboard commands,  
we do so afterwards. If the user wants to access the stuff  
programmatically (very rare), he can always do a C-h k.

> So "New File" says that a new file is created? Yes, it says that,  
> but it
> tells not the truth: no file is created by this operation.

The version I'm working with has "Open" (not New), and if it is  
"New" (but means find-file), it should be renamed. "new" creates  
something new, i.e. an empty buffer - and doesn't load an existing  
file. The problem may be that find-file can also create a new file.  
If you want to stick with that, rename the entry to "New/Open..."

> > 5. Move all of the window and frame stuff to a new menu, "Frames".
>
>     Not good: we have a crammed menu bar already, adding more top- 
> level
>     items would only make things worse with no real advantage.
>
> Agreed. But 1) this stuff has little to do with "File"; 2) use of a
> "Windows" menu, having a similar purpose, is common in other apps;  
> 3) I
> think it is likely that we will have more frame and window commands  
> to add
> to a Frames menu in the future.

I agree with both of you. I would suggest to stick it in the Buffers  
menu. There is room for it, and we have a "Frames" submenu in the  
Buffers menu when there is more than one frame. It would nicely  
correlate to the "Windows" menu existing in standard GUIs, but  
because so many people work with a single frame and switch between  
buffers, it makes sense to stick to the menu title "buffers" and have  
frames as a submenu, and split/unsplit on the top-level hierarchy,  
separated with a line separator.

Can I make another suggestion?
Some items in the Options menu are buffer-local (truncate-lines),  
while most are global. It would be smart to separate the two kinds of  
items.
I'm not sure about the "case-insensitive search". In Aquamacs, I have  
moved it to the Edit/search sub-menu.

It would also be good if someone could work on making "Set Font/ 
Fontset" a proper sub-menu (this might be Carbon specific, I don't  
know).