Proposal: A Get Started introduction to emacs [was: An anonymous IRC user's opinion]

Proposal: A Get Started introduction to emacs [was: An anonymous IRC user's opinion]

[Moakt Temporary Email]

Hi Eli, Hi everyone,


> > The implementation is mainly about 2 parts:
> > 
> > 1. part1: "Getting started" (or introduction to emacs).
>
> This is basically an alternative to TUTORIAL.  It describes the Emacs
> basics in a different order than the tutorial, and I'm not sure which
> one is better.  The advantage of this method is that it's shorter and
> introduces the basic concepts right away; the disadvantage is that the
> description is necessarily much more abstract, and almost nothing in
> it requires the reader to _do_ anything, which IME tends to bore and
> lose the reader's attention.


I agree on the advantages which are in the main purpose of such a quick introduction (in contrast with a tutorial).

I don’t really agree on the disadvantages, because the introduction is better be abstract (if we agree on the “abstract” term), and user attention is kept in, because he is clicking on links to see the visual items and he is also executing some commands (opening windows, closing them, opening files, closing them, opening documentations, closing them, …).

I think the keybindings tends to bore and lose the user attention because they are numerous, repetitive task, needs lot of memorization, and may also overwhelm and discourage user, he might also thinks that he needs to use keybindings to start using emacs which is not true.

User also tends to be bored when reading any long reading material, specially if he does not have any global visibility before-hand, like a table of contents for example.

And even if he decided to scroll all the way down to have a quick idea before start reading the actual tutorial, he will see the following titles: “SUMMARY”, “BASIC CURSOR CONTROL”, “IF EMACS STOPS RESPONDING”, “ DISABLED COMMANDS”, “WINDOWS”, “INSERTING AND DELETING”, “ UNDO”, “ FILES”, “ BUFFER”, “EXTENDING THE COMMAND SET”, “AUTO SAVE”, “ECHO AREA”, “MODE LINE”, “SEARCHING”, “MULTIPLE WINDOWS”, “MULTIPLE FRAMES”,”RECURSIVE EDITING LEVELS”, which IMO tends to make user thinks that emacs is very complicated to understand and use, and when he starts reading, he will get a second confirmation on his first thoughts.

So it may be a good idea to do a quick, easy and more entertaining introduction for some of these terms (and only terms) user needs to know to start using emacs.

The tutorial is also more for users who want to use keybindings, which are not really needed to start using emacs (only copy/paste and undo/redo which are even reachable from the toolbar, and also C-g which I added to the introduction).

Users who wants to use keybindings, can still read the tutorial just after the “getting started” introduction. I added a link to it at the end of the introduction. I also added there links for users to purchase and read the manual.

When the user first open emacs (*GNU Emacs* buffer), he does not really know what to do next. Should he start reading the manual directly ? I don’t think so, very discouraging, so he will mostly never engage by purchasing the manual neither. User needs first to feel comfortable, and that he can do something useful with emacs, before doing that. Reading the tutorial will not help with this. Clicking on the other links (Open a file, open home directory, customize startup) will also not help with this at all.

User better be guided step by step, and keeping his attention and interest in emacs, until he is comfortable enough with emacs and ready to engage in a more complicated and time consuming steps, like reading the tutorial, reading the manual, etc.

It may seem impossible for advanced emacs users to use the menu bar or toolbar to issue commands (not using keybindings), but this is totally fine for a new user, that is why these (menu bar and toolbar) are here in the first place.

After a new user starts to use emacs for a while, he will say: “Ok, I like emacs, I will stick with it, but I need to issue commands in a quicker way”, then he will search and be happy to discover keybindings in emacs (he will have most certainly already discovered them from the menu bar, toolbar’s tooltips, customization ui, tutorial, other emacs users, ...)

Many other things in the tutorial are also not really needed to start using emacs which reduce the reading time considerably.

Users will also not remember all the keybindings when they finish reading the tutorial (or tend to forget them quickly), all what they will remember is that emacs is very complicated to use, and will try to quickly find other alternatives first (user’s first impression is very important to stick to this or that).

Let just give user the ability to start using emacs as easy and quick as possible, leaving the (other features) pleasant discovery journey take place naturally.


> That's a tough ticket.  There's so much in the Emacs display that is
> or might be important that explaining it in a short text is hard, if
> not impossible.  For example, the description you posted doesn't
> mention the scroll bars, and the description of the mode line is only
> hinted upon; filling that with actual information will likely make it
> much longer.  I think we'd most welcome attempts to do what you are
> trying to do, but it isn't easy.


No need to describe everything in emacs, _only_ things needed to _start_ using emacs. I think the actual introduction is more or less complete.

I don’t know if the user need to know about the scroll bars to _start_ using emacs, I think they can be discovered _later_.

Filling the dots(…) will of course make the introduction longer, but these are mandatory for user to start using emacs, there is no way to avoid them, if you think that I added unneeded things, they can and should be removed.


I hope this part finds its way into emacs, as it is totally independent from the other parts. It only needs little bit of work to complete, mostly to fill the dots(...). I did not do that, for multiple reasons, one of them is that you know emacs better then me, etc.


If anyone landed here, and is wondering what this “Get Started” introduction to emacs is about and where to find it, you can check my previous message https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2024-10/msg00245.html.


Thank you all for your time