From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Luc Teirlinck Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes default in Emacs. Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 20:19:44 -0500 (CDT) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <200306200119.h5K1Jic11729@eel.dms.auburn.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1056071997 2778 80.91.224.249 (20 Jun 2003 01:19:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 01:19:57 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Karl Berry Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Fri Jun 20 03:19:56 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19TAZI-0000id-00 for ; Fri, 20 Jun 2003 03:19:56 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 19TAaf-0003WQ-00 for ; Fri, 20 Jun 2003 03:21:21 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19TAZF-0005mG-Fj for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Thu, 19 Jun 2003 21:19:53 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19TAYv-0005j6-Ek for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Jun 2003 21:19:33 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19TAYt-0005gE-T8 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Jun 2003 21:19:32 -0400 Original-Received: from manatee.dms.auburn.edu ([131.204.53.104]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19TAYt-0005fE-F3 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Jun 2003 21:19:31 -0400 Original-Received: from eel.dms.auburn.edu (eel.dms.auburn.edu [131.204.53.108]) h5K1JToc020200; Thu, 19 Jun 2003 20:19:29 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: (from teirllm@localhost) by eel.dms.auburn.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.11.6) id h5K1Jic11729; Thu, 19 Jun 2003 20:19:44 -0500 (CDT) X-Authentication-Warning: eel.dms.auburn.edu: teirllm set sender to teirllm@dms.auburn.edu using -f Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:15168 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:15168 I am rewriting parts of the Info tutorial. This took me a little bit longer than expected, because I had to learn texinfo first (which I had never used before) and because I checked the entire tutorial for undocumented differences between the Emacs and stand-alone versions. I am about ready to send a proposed revision to Karl for review. Before I can do that however, I feel that the following problem needs to be addressed. One of the differences between the Emacs and stand-alone versions is the behavior of . The tutorial describes the stand-alone version. I could try to torture the brains of unsuspecting newbies by trying to explain them the subtleties of the Emacs version. However, I believe that it would make a lot more sense to change the default Emacs behavior to the stand-alone behavior, by changing the default value of Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes from t to nil. Description of the stand-alone behavior: and not only move forward and backward through the current node. They also move between nodes. at the end of a node moves to the next node; (or ) at the beginning of a node moves to the previous node. In effect, these commands scroll through all the nodes in an Info file as a single logical sequence. You can read an entire manual top to bottom by just typing , and move backward through the entire manual from bottom to top by typing (or ). My comments: Makes sense, is intuitive, easy to understand, and obviously useful. Perfectly consistent with the usual Emacs behavior of in other read-only documentation-style buffers. Emacs behavior: Same a stand-alone, except when menus come in sight. Then things get wild. Then we go to some menu entry. Surprising enough to newbies. But which menu entry? Consider the following part of the dir file: * CC Mode: (ccmode). Emacs mode for editing C, C++, Objective-C, Java, Pike, and IDL code. * CL: (cl). Partial Common Lisp support for Emacs Lisp. With point on the "J" of "Java" where do we go to? To CL, "of course". It might actually make more sense for to do that than for RETURN (which now visits CC Mode) because RETURN is supposed to visit the node to which the description refers, whereas is supposed to scroll FORWARD and hence visiting CL might make (relatively) more sense than visiting CC mode. Might be OK for some advanced users, but way too complicated and subtle for newbies (as well as for me, actually). Throughout Emacs, in read-only buffers usually scrolls forward but does NOT visit "the next thing referenced past point". Somebody tries C-h i for the very first time. Huge dir buffer. So the first thing we do is what we are used to do in documentation style read-only buffers, say NEWS (C-h n), we type to browse through the huge list of entries. What happened? Where did we go to and why? I believe that the obvious thing to do is to change the default value of `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' from t to nil. Way more transparent to newbies and eliminates one more difference between the Emacs and stand-alone versions. Advanced users who find the more complex current Emacs behavior more convenient can easily customize the variable. Sincerely, Luc.