Re: configurable means hard? [was: ... easier explanation how to setup gnus ...]

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>         File
>         - Why do I have five print options, and what's the difference?

Because Emacs doesn't offer a good way to print, so we offer various
workarounds (I wish I were kidding).

>         Edit
>         - What's a "face"?

I don't see that word in the menu.  The closest I see is "Text
properties", which is indeed probably not what current non-Emacs users
expect (they'd probably expect some kind of customization panel).

>         Tools 
>         - Why do I read Net News with Gnus and send mail with Gnus
>           but *read* mail with RMAIL?

Good point.  This is the kind of thing you can report via M-x
report-emacs-bug.

>         - Why doesn't encryption work?[1]

Not sure what that means.

> I don't mean to suggest these questions don't have answers--clearly
> they do.  But these are things I thought of in the 30 seconds it took
> me to conduct my thought experiment, and I only actually tried to do
> two things: open a new window (i.e., what I "thought" was a window was
> a frame and vice versa) and use the menu to encrypt a file.   I'm sure
> there are more.

No doubt.  It's very helpful for users to report those things, because
most Emacs coders hack on Emacs for their own benefit and taking a step
back and trying to imagine oneself as a new user can be time-consuming
if not difficult.

> Complexity itself is not a problem, per se; but the presentation of that
> complexity can be, and usually is.  I just think Emacs in general and
> Gnus in particular needs some work in that regard.

Very much agreed.  Help is welcome.

> [1] Incidentally, I appear to have discovered what might be a very minor
>     bug in 24.3, as well; when you select a file to encrypt but gpg is
>     not installed, you get a "permission denied" error, not a more
>     accurate "file not found" error.

Actually it should say something like "can't find gpg".
That also can be reported via M-x report-emacs-bug.


        Stefan