From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Richard M. Stallman" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: new apropos feature in Emacs-22 Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 12:49:56 -0500 Message-ID: References: <200511050315.jA53Fjd19148@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <200511060027.jA60R2f26077@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <200511080458.jA84wXB17185@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <200511120315.jAC3F8125736@raven.dms.auburn.edu> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1131817913 12021 80.91.229.2 (12 Nov 2005 17:51:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 17:51:53 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Nov 12 18:51:44 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EazW5-0001BR-R6 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 12 Nov 2005 18:50:18 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EazW5-0007fY-C7 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 12 Nov 2005 12:50:17 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1EazVm-0007dR-I2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 12 Nov 2005 12:49:58 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1EazVl-0007d0-Op for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 12 Nov 2005 12:49:58 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EazVl-0007cu-IJ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 12 Nov 2005 12:49:57 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.164] (helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1EazVl-0000bI-S6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 12 Nov 2005 12:49:57 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.34) id 1EazVk-0006df-Or; Sat, 12 Nov 2005 12:49:56 -0500 Original-To: Luc Teirlinck In-reply-to: <200511120315.jAC3F8125736@raven.dms.auburn.edu> (message from Luc Teirlinck on Fri, 11 Nov 2005 21:15:08 -0600 (CST)) 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:45828 Archived-At: The only think I can think of that would help beginners with such inputs would be to detect such cases and ask the user "Did you mean this as a regexp or as a list of keywords?" That question would help people without requiring them to remember in advance that the two options exist. It would be _very_ annoying if that question were asked each time that an input could be interpreted as a regexp, I agree. What I proposed was to ask this question only in cases like ".emacs file" where users might plausibly think they were keywords; that is to say, only when period is the only special regexp character. Those cases would not be very common, so the total annoyance will be small. Also, I believe that if a beginning user uses apropos, it usually is because they read some doc somewhere that told them that, for more info, they could run a specific apropos command with a specific regexp. It is probably because they read some documentation. I don't follow the last part of your sentence. Anyway, I don't think that makes this question unuseful.