From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jean Louis Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Debunking Emacs merits over GUI - Re: package for Email Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2023 12:07:33 +0300 Message-ID: References: <20230118180348.gzwvy6iztok45ko3@zoho.com> <20230119161030.vt4muwcdvuwdqmj7@zoho.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="16617"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Mutt/2.2.9+54 (af2080d) (2022-11-21) Cc: Gottfried , "help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org" To: Milan Glacier Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Jan 20 10:34:47 2023 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1pInnL-00045x-2t for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 20 Jan 2023 10:34:47 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1pInmu-0001sW-Pj; Fri, 20 Jan 2023 04:34:20 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1pInmt-0001sM-NK for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 20 Jan 2023 04:34:19 -0500 Original-Received: from stw1.rcdrun.com ([217.170.207.13]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1pInmr-0000df-Lc for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 20 Jan 2023 04:34:19 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost ([::ffff:197.239.15.2]) (AUTH: PLAIN admin, TLS: TLS1.3,256bits,ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384) by stw1.rcdrun.com with ESMTPSA id 000000000010383A.0000000063CA6017.00002F02; Fri, 20 Jan 2023 02:34:12 -0700 Mail-Followup-To: Milan Glacier , Gottfried , "help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20230119161030.vt4muwcdvuwdqmj7@zoho.com> Received-SPF: pass client-ip=217.170.207.13; envelope-from=bugs@gnu.support; helo=stw1.rcdrun.com X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_PASS=-0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.help:142449 Archived-At: * Milan Glacier [2023-01-19 19:12]: > Generally vim/emacs are considered the most powerful editors to edit > text. With mutt you can easily edit those text within emacs/vim just in > one or two keystrokes. And with mu4e/gnus/wanderlast you can directly > edit them within emacs. Sounds like Deja-Vu. I am Emacs user and it is for reasons of being extensible. I am using it because I am dependant. Not because "it is powerful". That editor is "powerful" may not be understood by public. And there are contrary opinions: 5 Powerful Text Editors for Windows - Lifehack: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/6-powerful-text-editors-for-windows.html some of them not even mentioning Emacs: Best text editors of 2023 | TechRadar: https://www.techradar.com/best/best-text-editors The power of Emacs stem from its extensibility, as it has programming language built in, users may extend it how they need. On the other hand, today many editor have plugins, extensibility is for me the major thing. On the other hand, some things simply can't be done in Emacs due it sluggish performance. Let us say listings in sql-mode, is so much slower than in XTerm, or putting very many items in tabulated-list-mode, or handling large font-lock-mode code, or handling large number of Maildirs. > As you have said, if you want to edit mails from GUI client, you have to > firstly save a copy of messages and then open it in emacs/vim. > > It has no benifit for average user. Yes. But the OP already uses emacs, > which means that easily using emacs to edit mail buffer as text buffer > may be a merit to him/her. OK fine, and I think opposite, person would just waste his time. Emacs just as mutt comes from old times, it has it's design from terminals. Thunderbird has been designed to be graphical application from it's beginning. When user already know Thunderbird, I can't recommend using something like Emacs where there is almost no mouse support for management of e-mails. There is no decent or modern contact management in Emacs. E-mails and contact management are must, this is 2023, not 1994. > > > - Integration with other emacs facilities like orgmode, pdftools, > > > xwidget stuff. > > > > Any Thunderbird user may configure it fast to open Org files with > > Thunderbird. Thunderbird user may use Emacs to edit e-mails. > > Thanks for your clarification, thunderbird does something pretty good > here. I don't use thunderbird but I believe you can't to those things > easily with other GUI email clients like say: Apple Mail. Just that Apple Mail is proprietary software, not an option to recommend to any users of GNU mailing list, as such we don't support it. > > I can't see why would be "merit over GUI mail clients" to use > > xwidgets, those are programmer tools. > > You are right, xwidget is not a merit. I am just mentioning one of the > emacs' builtin feature. So that you can read your emails within emacs, > you don't need to open GUI browser. (The OP already uses emacs). Personally, I am aware, and I use myself `mutt' as I can't allow me sluggish work with Thunderbird. Though objectively users would be better comforted by using KMail or Thunderbird or Evolution e-mail clients. By the way I use `mail' also, to read and send e-mails I need nothing but `mail' and `ed' editor. And too often I edit with `ed' from within Emacs on remote servers. I can't wait for Tramp in Emacs to load, and finish it's functions. Entering into remote server and editing files by using Emacs shell is more convenient. Speeding the connection with SSH sockets is convenient. Editing e-mail aliases with `ed' and system files, is convenient and less error prone. How can I recommend that type of usage to people who are used to personal computer and graphical applications? My personal preference would impair their life. They could not possibly become efficient or speedy with it. > Yes you are right. Average users won't feel it is powerful than GUI > client. GUI client already satisfies the indexing and searching need for > most of the user. That is the price of powerfulness, it takes time to > learn. When system is truly powerful it will be ergonomic to human. There will be hand gestures, and speech recognition. Display may be on a large TV screen or when user walks to kitchen to fetch a sandwich, monitor in the kitchen would recognize it and turn itself on, and keep running the video or editing of the programming code. Almost any programming language ins powerful for programmer. But for user of the program, that is for majority of no meaning. What people need is assistance in their life. I remember watching 1994 or 1995, perfectly functional speech recognition software in Germany, and I was thinking alright, that is what we have to have. It was writing text in German language straight into some word processing program. And now is 2023, and we don't have it. There is software, but it is all in parts and not integrated. People need integration. The non-free Android system shows pretty good integration of programs and assistive technologies for human. It can speak, it can become accessible, it provides sharing of almost anything to any communication channel. E-macs provides e-mails, and there is XMPP/Jabber chat, and IRC, it possible to connect it to communication channels, but it is all in parts as it comes from terminal world, not graphical world. I could imagine nice graphical choice of packages with recognizable identity icons, and simple descriptions, where user only need to click once to install it. All kinds of sharing to communication channels should be implemented just as the non-free Android system demonstrates it. Then the various assistive computer control like hand gestures, mouse gestures, eye control, speech recognition -- and THEN we can say it is powerful. And that is only two of features we need. Remember 2001: A Space Odyssey from 1968? That is what I consider how it should be, there shall be analogous "Hal" computer that listens to human, not only listens, but knows what is to be done after some training, without any talks. "When I wake up", "every morning", "open up doors, windows, and put my bed in order". Prepare my toothbrush with toothpaste ready in bathroom. When I enter bathroom, in the morning, give me middle stream of water of 19 degree temperature. When we think of objects in semantic triplets, the above statements are not hard to define by using speech or text. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_triple Thus programs have to be powerful from human users' view point, not just from programmers view point. -- Jean Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns In support of Richard M. Stallman https://stallmansupport.org/