From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: tip of the day? Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 08:25:34 -0700 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1152631584 2732 80.91.229.2 (11 Jul 2006 15:26:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 15:26:24 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jul 11 17:26:18 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1G0K7c-0007tj-3e for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 17:26:00 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1G0K7b-00071S-CM for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 11:25:59 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1G0K7L-0006yl-FN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 11:25:43 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1G0K7J-0006wJ-J9 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 11:25:42 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1G0K7J-0006w3-7L for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 11:25:41 -0400 Original-Received: from [141.146.126.228] (helo=agminet01.oracle.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA:24) (Exim 4.52) id 1G0K8e-0002bq-1t for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 11:27:04 -0400 Original-Received: from rgmsgw301.us.oracle.com (rgmsgw301.us.oracle.com [138.1.186.50]) by agminet01.oracle.com (Switch-3.1.7/Switch-3.1.7) with ESMTP id k6BFPct6029988 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:25:38 -0500 Original-Received: from dradamslap (dhcp-amer-whq-csvpn-gw3-141-144-80-214.vpn.oracle.com [141.144.80.214]) by rgmsgw301.us.oracle.com (Switch-3.1.7/Switch-3.1.7) with SMTP id k6BFPao3031073 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5 bits=128 verify=NO) for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 09:25:37 -0600 Original-To: "Emacs-Devel" X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1807 Importance: Normal X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAQAAAAI= X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAQAAAAI= X-Whitelist: TRUE X-Whitelist: TRUE 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:56926 Archived-At: A thread on help-emacs-windows gave me this idea. I don't know if it's already been implemented in some way in the past. (Perhaps I need a tip of the day, to let me know that tip-of-the-day exists!) Why not exploit the yow/cookie mechanism or something similar to provide a tip-of-the-day that Emacs users can turn on? Or, just bring up the Emacs manual at some node as a tip of the day. In the latter case, the node could be chosen from a selected list of introductory nodes, perhaps organized by category (e.g. novice vs advanced, or by subject area), so that some planning went into deciding what to present, or it could just be chosen at random. Users might even configure whether they want a random high-level node or to follow the plan. Years ago, I used yow or cookie (I don't remember) to pop up a random haiku from a huge file of haikus. That's what made me think this might be one way to provide a tip of the day. But it would be much easier (no file to create), and probably better for the user (because s?he can explore from there), to pop up a manual node. Some applications use such a tip-of-the-day feature, turning it on by default, so that new users see a tip at each application startup. Usually, when the tip pops up, it has a check box that you can uncheck to turn it off so you never see it again. Depending on what you are trying to do, what the application is, and how good the tips are, this feature can be annoying or surprisingly useful. Because the Emacs manual is so good and so rich, I think this would be useful for Emacs. But we would need to provide an easy way to turn it off, because it will surely annoy some of the people some of the time.