From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: The minibuffer vs. Dialog Boxes (Re: Making XEmacs be more up-to-date) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 09:26:54 +0300 (IDT) Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1019626224 5950 127.0.0.1 (24 Apr 2002 05:30:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 05:30:24 +0000 (UTC) Cc: xemacs-design@xemacs.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 170FMF-0001Xr-00 for ; Wed, 24 Apr 2002 07:30:23 +0200 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 170FNm-0000ox-00 for ; Wed, 24 Apr 2002 07:31:58 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 170FM9-0004xn-00; Wed, 24 Apr 2002 01:30:17 -0400 Original-Received: from is.elta.co.il ([199.203.121.2]) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 170FKH-0004ln-00 for ; Wed, 24 Apr 2002 01:28:21 -0400 Original-Received: from is (is [199.203.121.2]) by is.elta.co.il (8.9.3/8.8.8) with SMTP id JAA05448; Wed, 24 Apr 2002 09:26:54 +0300 (IDT) X-Sender: eliz@is Original-To: Terje Bless In-Reply-To: Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:3158 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:3158 On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Terje Bless wrote: > 2. The expected meaning of buttons is "wrong" here; button2 is Select > and not Paste as it is everywhere else. Button1 does nothing, but > everywhere else it means Select. Button3 gives you unrelated options. > This is possibly the most confusing combination of behaviour for > mouse buttons that can be chosen in the context. And it's absolutely > unique to XEmacs. That's true, Emacs traditionally has different conventions for mouse buttons. The main problem (I think) is that mouse-1, the left button, moves point to where you click, switching windows and buffers as appropriate. I don't see an easy solution to that, except to ease the burden a bit with tooltips and similar aids. > 3. A dialog can be dismissed if you enter it by mistake. Just click > Cancel or hit ESC. Here, ESC does nothing, there is no Cancel button, You can dismiss the pop-up window as well, just with different gestures. We could have a "Dismiss" button inside it to make it easier. I guess the assumtion is that, since you typed TAB, you will proceed by selecting one of the possible completions, after which the window pops down automagically. > Despite the dialogs, I tend to run my other editor entirely from the > keyboard. > > In the Xemacs conmpletions buffer there is no hint of how to do this Doesn't it say something like In this buffer, type RET to select the completion near point. ? > I'm sure you can switch from the minibuffer to the completions > buffer from the keyboard, but I don't know how (see below). Trying the > methods that are familiar from other environments -- and so have taken on > the status of trained reflexes by now -- do not work. Could you please tell what are those familiar methods? > >I think you overestimate the price. The price of using the Emacs manual > >as a reference, via the `i' command, is normally quite low. (The > >abnormal cases usually constitute docs bugs.) I suggest to try that, > >perhaps you will find it easier than you thought. > > Perhaps. What "i" command? "C-h i"? No. Type "C-h i", then "m xemacs RET" (or "m emacs RET", as the case may be), and _then_ type `i'. This invokes an Info command which asks for a string and then looks up that string in the indices of the manual you are looking at, in this case the XEmacs manual. A well-indexed manual should have every important concept as well as all standard commands, keystrokes, and variables in its indices. So `i' will quickly find what you are looking for with a very high probability. Let's conduct a little experiment, shall we? Give me a couple of subjects that someone might wish to find quickly in the docs (perhaps some problems that bothered you in the past), and I will post an unabridged and uncensored description of how I looked for that. (I can tell you in advance that my memory tends to forget many details, so you don't have to account for the possibility that I will know exactly where to look.) > Oh great! These keybindings change depending on what buffer I'm in? Of course they do.