From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eli Zaretskii" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Making Emacs more newbie friendly Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:05:18 +0200 Message-ID: <01c52c9d$Blat.v2.4$97620c00@zahav.net.il> References: <874qf8d3cy.fsf@thalassa.informatimago.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1111248568 11259 80.91.229.2 (19 Mar 2005 16:09:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 16:09:28 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Mar 19 17:09:28 2005 Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DCgVv-0003zA-OT for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 17:09:24 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DCgmd-00083v-Oj for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 11:26:39 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DCgm8-00082J-Km for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 11:26:08 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DCgm3-0007zE-L8 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 11:26:05 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DCgm2-0007w4-TX for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 11:26:02 -0500 Original-Received: from [192.114.186.24] (helo=legolas.inter.net.il) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1DCgUg-0001Vq-IC for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 19 Mar 2005 11:08:06 -0500 Original-Received: from zaretski (IGLD-84-228-241-130.inter.net.il [84.228.241.130]) by legolas.inter.net.il (MOS 3.5.6-GR) with ESMTP id DYW04371 (AUTH halo1); Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:08:04 +0200 (IST) Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailer: emacs 22.0.50 (via feedmail 8 I) and Blat ver 2.4 In-reply-to: (message from PT on Sat, 19 Mar 2005 15:52:33 +0100) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org X-MailScanner-To: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:24961 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:24961 > From: PT > Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 15:52:33 +0100 > > By arrow keys I also mean text selection with shift+arrow keys, etc. It is > pretty standard in modern systems, so it should be turned on by default. It would be unthinkable to turn them on by default, because people who are fast touch typists hold Shift while moving the cursor inside upper-case text. Emacs makes a point of being friendly to fast typists. > The newbies I met usually used a "visual" editor before. Like SlickEdit, > Eclipse or Visual Studio. > Compared to these editors Emacs is very strange the first time. I think > the default behavior of emacs should be more similar to these editors to > make the initial transition easier. Since the differences are so large, it's hard to make Emacs similar without changing the entire UI. Btw, based on my colleagues' experience, the transition from Visual Studio and its ilk to Emacs is not so hard. I guess we have different mileage. > For example, F2 which is a single-key binding controls two column mode if > I'm not mistaken while save-buffer which is frequent operation is on C-x > C-s. Dees it make sense from a newbie's point of view? Which feature will > he use more frequently? > > C-o would be nice for opening a file, but C-x C-f? Now that's a bit > strange if I'm new to Emacs. The idea in Emacs is that, since newbies mostly use the menu bar, we show the key bindings there. Later, when they switch to keyboard mode of operation as their prime, they have already seen the key bindings. This might be not the ideal setup, but given the vastly different keybindings, how can we do better? > At least that's what the newbies tell me. ("Emacs? You have to know a lot > of long key combinations to use it. Too complicated.") Whoever says that should be pointed to the menus. I'd expect newbies to know that alredy, and use the menus (and most modern computer users are menu-bar kind of people anyway).