From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: RE: tooltips for minor modes Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:10:52 -0800 Message-ID: <00be01c874df$02c20d60$0600a8c0@us.oracle.com> References: <200802190820.m1J8Knbo007894@sallyv1.ics.uci.edu><008401c87375$351efbd0$0600a8c0@us.oracle.com> <200802210919.m1L9J1gi006108@sallyv1.ics.uci.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1203635561 8985 80.91.229.12 (21 Feb 2008 23:12:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:12:41 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: , "'Dan Nicolaescu'" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Feb 22 00:13:04 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1JSKb8-0000Tx-6E for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:13:02 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JSKac-0003Ll-RA for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:12:30 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JSKaY-0003LO-9b for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:12:26 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JSKaW-0003Ko-SL for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:12:25 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JSKaW-0003Kb-Is for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:12:24 -0500 Original-Received: from agminet01.oracle.com ([141.146.126.228]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JSKaR-0007Ah-UT; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:12:20 -0500 Original-Received: from agmgw2.us.oracle.com (agmgw2.us.oracle.com [152.68.180.213]) by agminet01.oracle.com (Switch-3.2.4/Switch-3.1.7) with ESMTP id m1LNCGPC025923; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:12:16 -0600 Original-Received: from acsmt351.oracle.com (acsmt351.oracle.com [141.146.40.151]) by agmgw2.us.oracle.com (Switch-3.2.0/Switch-3.2.0) with ESMTP id m1L8UZGh019261; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:12:15 -0700 Original-Received: from inet-141-146-46-1.oracle.com by acsmt351.oracle.com with ESMTP id 3585107611203635452; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:10:52 -0800 Original-Received: from dradamslap1 (/141.144.81.25) by bhmail.oracle.com (Oracle Beehive Gateway v4.0) with ESMTP ; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:10:51 -0800 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 Thread-Index: Ach02WAnek1vV8tsTcmTz/uLUB7RVAAASseA In-Reply-To: X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3198 X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAQAAAAI= X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAQAAAAI= X-Whitelist: TRUE X-Whitelist: TRUE X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.4-2.6 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:89888 Archived-At: > One possibility would be to use the first line of the > doc-string. But a quick "grep --after=1 define-minor-mode" > shows that for quite a lot of minor modes the first line > of the doc-string gives not useful information: > > I am not surprised that the first line doesn't do it. > But we could make the second line do it. > > We might want to establish the convention that the second line > of a minor mode's doc string starts with the start of a > sentence that explains > briefly what the mode does. > > Then the tooltip could show the sentence which starts at that point. That sounds a bit artificial to me. The doc string needs also to be readable on its own. I'm not sure it's good to press doc-string parts into doing double duty. I would opt for a :help keyword or just forget about the tooltip. After all, now that we have a mouse-1 menu with a Help item that displays the whole doc string, there is a little less need for a tooltip. Yes, a tooltip would still be good, so that simply hovering over the lighter would give some info. But I'm not sure it's worth adding a new doc-string convention and counting on people to follow it.