Re: Options menu

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

storm@cua.dk (Kim F. Storm) writes:

> With the recent addition of "blinking cursor" to the options
> menu, it has become even more dis-organized than before.
>
>
> I suggest to rearrange it slightly to make the structure
> more logical and useful, by placing frequently used
> items at the top and "one-time" customizations later.

Uh, that's not "logical", that is at best "useful", and for a doubtful
value of "useful": after all, a logical grouping will save people time
also by letting them skip over uninteresting sections.

> OPTIONS
> ======================================
>    Customize Emacs                   >
> --------------------------------------
>    Language Environment (Mule)       >
>    Set Font/fontset
> --------------------------------------
>    Show/Hide                         >
> [] Blinking Cursor
> [] Syntax Highlighting
> [] Paren Match Highlighting
> [] Active Region Highlighting
> --------------------------------------

I don't think putting submenus at the top is a good idea, since the
usual menu semantics imply that some of those menus tend to open in
the process of trying to select options below them.

Customization menus tend to be at the bottom of menu stacks, anyway,
for almost all applications I know.


> [] Truncate Long Lines in this Buffer
> [] Word Wrap in Text Modes
> [] Case-insensitive Search
> [] C-x/C-c/C-v cut-and-paste (CUA)
> --------------------------------------

The order of the above is completely arbitrary.  We have some
highlighting stuff, then we have the buffer-specific long line stuff,
then we have some formatting specific "in text modes", then comes a
completely unrelated search option, and then again an editing mode
speciality.

This is pretty much chaotic.

> [] Use Directory Names in Buffer Names

Looks like a candidate for "Appearance".  Appearance could be
structured into overall appearance (frame stuff, cursor, menubar,
toolbar, speedbar) and detailed appearance (dirnames in buffers, file
name shadow, syntax highlighting).

> [] Save Places in Files between Sessions
> [] Automatic File De/compression

I'd remove the latter point from the menus and enable it by default.

> --------------------------------------
> [] Enter Debugger on Error
> [] Enter Debugger on Quit/C-g
> --------------------------------------

Not sure whether this is a good idea to put in a user menu.  It makes
it somewhat easier to give instructions for generating backtraces in
the case of tracking down a bug.  But it also is clutter.

> Personally, I would also like to rename "Show/Hide" to "Appearence"
> and move "Blinking Cursor" under that heading, but that's less
> important.

I think now that Emacs has a --no-blinking-cursor command line option
that is also given by --help, those people that can't stand the cursor
long enough to configure it off have a reasonable escape path.  So I'd
move the Blinking Cursor to Appearance.  We should do what is
reasonably possible to reduce clutter.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum