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: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:30:21 -0500 (CDT) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <200308120230.h7C2ULg21458@raven.dms.auburn.edu> References: <200308100342.h7A3gXV19877@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <200308101650.h7AGovxS005131@rum.cs.yale.edu> <200308102309.h7AN9O420410@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <200308111454.h7BEsTti008562@rum.cs.yale.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1060655628 2249 80.91.224.253 (12 Aug 2003 02:33:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 02:33:48 +0000 (UTC) Cc: monnier+gnu/emacs@cs.yale.edu, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Tue Aug 12 04:33:46 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 19mOyo-0003Bk-00 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 2003 04:33:46 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 19mP6K-0006I4-00 for ; Tue, 12 Aug 2003 04:41:32 +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 19mOxs-0003Xw-Bx for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Mon, 11 Aug 2003 22:32:48 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19mOxm-0003XK-Ir for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Aug 2003 22:32:42 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19mOxG-0003G5-MH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Aug 2003 22:32:41 -0400 Original-Received: from [131.204.53.104] (helo=manatee.dms.auburn.edu) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19mOxG-0003FD-8k for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Aug 2003 22:32:10 -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 h7C2W6eQ009969; Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:32:06 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: (from teirllm@localhost) by raven.dms.auburn.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.11.6) id h7C2ULg21458; Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:30:21 -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: <200308111454.h7BEsTti008562@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:15893 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:15893 Stefan Monnier wrote: Reminds me of the suggestion I had a while ago to make such help partly automatic (at least when a `local-map' or `keymap' property is present, but maybe also when a `mouse-face' is present). Having it automatic saves work from the coder, but also allows the help text to be different in the `point-over' than in the `mouse-over' case. I was not a part of that discussion and hence am unfamiliar with the arguments pro and con. Eli Zaretskii wrote: I think there should be another binding for the same command that doesn't use the mouse, and the help echo should print that binding when this option is set (since it's obvious the mouse is not used). There are two problems here. 1. In the dired case, which is rather typical, the problem with "mouse-2: visit this file in other window" is not just that it mentions mouse-2 instead of `o', but also that it singles out this particular command for documentation. The reason for that is that it is bound to a mouse command and that the user has the mouse in hand and hence the author knows that he wants to use a mouse command. Plenty of help-echo's are in this category. There is no need to access these from the keyboard. 2. It seems that your suggestion would require plenty of work rewriting `help-echo' properties. If we are going to provide automatic display, I believe we should be conservative in what we show. It should really be relevant, since, especially in spoken version, it is distracting. I would propose to only show `short-help' on point-over, or at least provide an option to only show that one. Maybe `short-help' for `keymap' and `local-map' properties could be generated automatically (but overridden by an explicit `short-help' property). If not, we could show `help-echo' on point-over, *if* one of those properties is present, because in that case `help-echo' is very likely to be relevant. We could use the convention that a value of t for `short-help' would mean to show `help-echo' on point-over. So we would have three types of `short-help': automatically generated, `t' to indicate that the `help-echo' property is really relevant to the keyboard user and explicitly provided strings. In the beginning most `short-help' properties might be of the first type, but that could change quickly. In the meantime, `help-echo' is available when explicitly asked for, or maybe as an option for automatic display, for users who do not mind about irrelevant info showing up in the echo area. Sincerely, Luc.