Re: Emacs Mini Manual (PART 3) - CUSTOMIZING AND EXTENDING EMACS

[solidius4747@gmail.com]

Vào 21:38:24 UTC+7 Thứ ba, ngày 01 tháng bảy năm 2014, jessejazza đã viết:
> On Tue, 1 Jul 2014, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> > James Freer <jessejazza3.uk@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> >
> 
> >> I'm very grateful for the time you have spent
> 
> >> although now after a couple of weeks I have learnt
> 
> >> enough to be happy with. I've found using emacs-nox
> 
> >> and forgetting about the gui is worthwhile and taking
> 
> >> time to learn from the cheatsheet. It would be nice
> 
> >> to have the 'mini manual' in pdf then one could print
> 
> >> it out and read on the train (or similar times when
> 
> >> one is away from the PC).
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> >
> 
> > Do my ears deceive me?! Finally a guy with class!
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> > F*ing right!
> 
> >
> 
> > I haven't seen the particular document, though. I will
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> > read it tonight and probably get back to the OP with
> 
> > some comments.
> 
> >
> 
> > If you don't like to just print and read the HTML, you
> 
> > can use several tools to get it to PDF. You can use
> 
> > html2ps, and then ps2pdf - html2ps is in the repos,
> 
> > ps2pdf is part of ghostscript, which is likewise in the
> 
> > repos. (There are other ways to do this as well.)
> 
> 
> 
> html2ps
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> I'll have to look up
> 
> 
> 
> I knew about ps2pdf and pdf2ps as I use it to send faxes. (yes fax still has 
> 
> a use). Or maybe I need to look at other methods.
> 
> 
> 
> When I 'read on a train' - in truth I really meant that I like the pdf to print 
> 
> out, bind, and then use like a book for bedtime reading. keen beginner eh.
> 
> 
> 
> james

I'm glad that you like my tutorial. I'm working on how to generate a pdf document with org-mode. Not sure how many pages my "mini manual" actually consumes. I didn't intend it to be a book in the first place.

Vào 06:12:10 UTC+7 Thứ ba, ngày 08 tháng bảy năm 2014, Emanuel Berg đã viết:
> solidius4747@gmail.com writes:
> 
> 
> 
> > I wrote part 3:
> 
> > http://tuhdo.github.io/emacs-tutor3.html
> 
> >
> 
> > It includes popular packages that people are
> 
> > using. If you are new to Emacs, it would be useful.
> 
> 
> 
> I wouldn't call that tutorial "mini"!
> 
> 
> 
> It is clear you put a very big effort into this. You
> 
> should get a medal, or some part of the gold stashed in
> 
> IET, the International Emacs Treasury (if there is
> 
> one).
> 
> 
> 
> But, this makes me think, did you experience any
> 
> shortcomings or "gaps" in the official Emacs manual?
> 
> Perhaps you could integrate your project with it,
> 
> somehow. If not, the official Emacs people should put a
> 
> link to your project from the official site, at least,
> 
> if they didn't already.
> 
> 
> 
> Feedback on the material itself: the part on MELPA,
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> what I can see it misses one essential part, namely how
> 
> to *submit* code: both how that is done in practice,
> 
> and guidelines on the Elisp itself (or references, if
> 
> you don't feel like writing this all over).
> 
> 
> 
> Keep it up!
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> underground experts united

Thanks! 

As I stated in Part 1 in "Why I wrote this guide" section, it is because I feel the Emacs manual is designed to be more like a reference material than a beginner material. It also does not mention about popular 3rd party packages, and popular package archives like MELPA. Where should new users to Emacs find this information? They will have to waste time to rediscover packages that people used long ago. I want to get productive with Emacs as fast as possible. Telling people to read the whole Emacs Lisp manual before able to customizing/extending Emacs is likely to push them away from Emacs.

As for submitting code to MELPA, I don't think it's necessary to include in the guide, because clearly the targeted audience is beginners who just start their journey with customizing/extending Emacs. It's unlikely they will roll a package on their own after finishing the guide anyway.