From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
To: "Clément Pit-Claudel" <clement.pitclaudel@live.com>
Cc: Emacs developers <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: Ideas to improve the output of C-h m?
Date: Fri, 01 May 2020 11:55:37 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <jwvh7wzwtg3.fsf-monnier+emacs@gnu.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <DB7PR03MB47008BFEC533E83CF9548E00EEAB0@DB7PR03MB4700.eurprd03.prod.outlook.com> ("Clément Pit-Claudel"'s message of "Fri, 1 May 2020 10:34:46 -0400")
> I have pasted at the botom of this email the output of the current C-h
> m and the output of the code I wrote a while ago. Here's how it looks
> for a single entry, to see the difference (note that unlike C-h m, it
> currently groups keybindings that map to the same command):
I think grouping is a good idea, tho the current "columnar" output has
its advantages as well.
> ‘C-c @’ (outline-mark-subtree)
> Mark the current subtree in an outlined document.
> ‘C-c C-n’ (outline-next-visible-heading)
> Move to the next visible heading line.
More importantly, while I like the idea of showing the first line of the
docstring, I find the above much harder to read. It makes the common
`C-c` and `outline-` prefixes much less obvious so you can't so easily
focus on the other parts to find what you're looking for.
IOW it's a definite improvement when you're looking for something akin
to a "quick overview" or "very short manual" that you will read from
top-to-bottom. But if you're instead interested in looking up a table,
I think it's rather worse.
Not sure how/if we can reconcile those two kinds of uses.
Of course, we could simply do:
> ‘C-c @’ (outline-mark-subtree) Mark the current subtree in an outlined document.
> ‘C-c C-n’ (outline-next-visible-heading) Move to the next visible heading line.
and then play with the line-truncation keep it on a single line to get
the same benefit as the current text (but at the cost of pushing the
docstring to the right were it will only be visible in a very wide
window or after the user explicitly scrolls or changes the line-truncation).
> (in a real Emacs window, the function names and the keybindings are highlighted, and on graphical terminals there's a thin line between each entry).
Don't know about you, bu I'm looking at it in a real (and graphical)
Emacs window and I can't see any of those finer details ;-)
Stefan
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-05-01 15:55 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-05-01 14:34 Ideas to improve the output of C-h m? Clément Pit-Claudel
2020-05-01 15:55 ` Stefan Monnier [this message]
2020-05-01 16:16 ` Clément Pit-Claudel
2020-05-01 17:44 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-01 23:02 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-02 3:24 ` Clément Pit-Claudel
2020-05-06 13:34 ` Stefan Kangas
[not found] ` <jwv5zd9wyj6.fsf-monnier+emacs@gnu.org>
[not found] ` <CADwFkmmhezor_jCwff8YH2wVvnyb7Rf=7YnLeeN_aRehkw8beA@mail.gmail.com>
2020-08-21 0:27 ` scratch/substitute-command-keys: C conversion of s-c-k Stefan Kangas
2020-05-03 3:39 ` Ideas to improve the output of C-h m? Richard Stallman
2020-05-02 4:05 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
List information: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=jwvh7wzwtg3.fsf-monnier+emacs@gnu.org \
--to=monnier@iro.umontreal.ca \
--cc=clement.pitclaudel@live.com \
--cc=emacs-devel@gnu.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).