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: Re: Reducing mouse-dependency In Emacs. Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 18:09:24 -0500 (CDT) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <200308102309.h7AN9O420410@raven.dms.auburn.edu> References: <200308100342.h7A3gXV19877@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <200308101650.h7AGovxS005131@rum.cs.yale.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1060557268 13984 80.91.224.253 (10 Aug 2003 23:14:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 23:14:28 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Mon Aug 11 01:14:27 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19lzON-0006fL-00 for ; Mon, 11 Aug 2003 01:14:27 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 19lzVM-0005mw-00 for ; Mon, 11 Aug 2003 01:21:41 +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 19lzNV-000805-1R for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Sun, 10 Aug 2003 19:13:33 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19lzMF-0007Ns-Hc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Aug 2003 19:12:15 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19lzLN-0004xe-5q for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Aug 2003 19:11:52 -0400 Original-Received: from [131.204.53.104] (helo=manatee.dms.auburn.edu) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19lzLK-0004rB-JH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Aug 2003 19:11:18 -0400 Original-Received: from raven.dms.auburn.edu (raven.dms.auburn.edu [131.204.53.29]) by manatee.dms.auburn.edu (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id h7ANB7eQ007563; Sun, 10 Aug 2003 18:11:07 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: (from teirllm@localhost) by raven.dms.auburn.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.11.6) id h7AN9O420410; Sun, 10 Aug 2003 18:09:24 -0500 (CDT) X-Authentication-Warning: raven.dms.auburn.edu: teirllm set sender to teirllm@dms.auburn.edu using -f Original-To: monnier+gnu/emacs@cs.yale.edu In-reply-to: <200308101650.h7AGovxS005131@rum.cs.yale.edu> (monnier+gnu/emacs@cs.yale.edu) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:15873 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:15873 Stefan Monnier wrote: Sounds like overengineering to me. It's already hard enough to get people to add the `help-echo' property (additionally to docstrings, comments, and the manual). And the NEWS. But the text properties would be optional, defaulting to `help-echo'. The reason for a separate `short-help' is that a much too large percentage of the help-echo properties are like: mouse-2: visit this file in other window on a file name in dired. There is no reason to single out this command among the zillion possible, other than that the user has the mouse in the hand and hence is planning to use the mouse, so only mouse commands "make sense". If 100% of the help-echo's were like that, there would be no need at all to access `help-echo' from the keyboard. If 0% were like that, you would be completely right. The problem is that it is not close to 0, but not close to 100 either. In the case of `long-help', there might be instances where an author might want to provide more information than would comfortably fit in the echo area. There are some bugs in the version of `print-local-help' I sent, but they are easy to correct. Anyway, we need to decide what we want to do with these new text properties. If one definitely does not want them, the function would get shorter. What you suggested sounds pretty good. We could also have a more noisy option that always echos the help-echo property around point (after some idle delay, of course). Or some other that hilights text with the `mouse-face' face when point is inside. In as far as an option to automatically display the help-echo text on "point-over" is concerned, I told Eli, who suggested the same thing, this morning that it would be a good idea, but after actually implementing it, I completely changed my mind. I found all that text popping up in the echo area very distracting. Most of it was of the "mouse-2: do something you do not want to do" type. I believe something should be done with highlighting, but at the moment I am not sure what the best thing would be. Sincerely, Luc.