From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Xah Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: emacs mode line suggestions Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:45:31 -0800 (PST) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <627587d5-4c9f-4b49-a497-d6a1edb92fc7@v13g2000pro.googlegroups.com> References: <15962952-6180-41bd-abce-1b919aa55807@v13g2000pro.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1226906147 24490 80.91.229.12 (17 Nov 2008 07:15:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:15:47 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Nov 17 08:16:46 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1L1yLl-0006RV-B3 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:16:45 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:56089 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1L1yKc-0003Rw-Py for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:15:34 -0500 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!v13g2000pro.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 72 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.6.185.159 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1226875532 18995 127.0.0.1 (16 Nov 2008 22:45:32 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:45:32 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: v13g2000pro.googlegroups.com; posting-host=24.6.185.159; posting-account=bRPKjQoAAACxZsR8_VPXCX27T2YcsyMA User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10_4_11; en) AppleWebKit/525.26.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.2 Safari/525.26.12, gzip(gfe), gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:164515 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:15:16 -0500 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:59858 Archived-At: On Nov 16, 10:12 am, Ian Eure wrote: > > Counting emacs's own buffers, those info, messages, scratch, > > completions, grep output, shell output, C-h f and friends output, > > dictionary lookup output, ispell output, man page output ... etc... > > these are typically looked once and not useful afterwards. Switching > > and cycling thru them are not much useful. > > I basically agree with this stuff. I doubt many hardcore Emacs users > choose to switch buffers this way, which requires using the mouse. And > the part of the behavior that is least useful is that the switch is > blind - you don't know what buffer you're going to get unless you know > the current state of the buffer-list. > > My objection is to the idea that you don't want star buffers in the > list. These are also used for interaction with external processes: > *ssh: host*, *SQL: foo*, *Twit-recent*, *compilation*, *shell*, > *Python*. It seems ill advised to exclude those from the list. what's *Twit-recent*? anyhow, you are right that including them would be good too. > > =E2=80=A2 Minor mode should not be displayed in mode line. It's confusi= ng. For > > one reason, it by default selectively display only some of the minor > > modes currently on, and the selective process is not something people > > who intuitively understands. For the other reason, Emacs's technical > > concept of Minor mode is somewhat confusing. Most minor modes in > > practice are Preferences settings (Mac-speak) or Options (Windows- > > speak and Linux Desktops) from user point of view. > > Where would you suggest showing this information? Some minor modes > change Emacs' behavior significantly. For example: auto-fill-mode or > abbrev-mode. If these aren't in the mode line, where do you find this > information? perhaps in the Options menu. > >>> =E2=80=A2 Clicking on the major mode name should pop up a contextual = menu to > >>> let user switch to major major modes. > > >> Switching a major mode is a very rare command, so having this at your > >> fingertips makes no sense, IMO. > > > switching between modes is not rarely used. I'd estimate it is used > > every other hour at least. > > Can you describe the use case where you do this? It sounds like you > have a configuration issue, honestly. > > I think the only time I manually switch modes is when I need to use > *scratch* for something, e.g. I'll switch to emacs-lisp-mode if I want > to eval some code, sql-mode if I want to write a query, etc. same here. switching to the right mode is often needed for those who uses *scratch* or creating a new file Ctrl+x Ctrl+f, or new buffer. in almost all modern editors, there are menu to switch to the rigth language mode. Providing a menu probably ease up learning curve for new users. (note that in Aquamacs this is done.) I think it is a frequently requested feature. A new user, who are not yet familiar with emacs M-x command and common mode names, has no way to know how to switch mode or what are available. Xah =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/ =E2=98=84