Omission in tutorial

Omission in tutorial

[David Kastrup]

I just found that the tutorial does not mention the possibility of
pressing C-h in an incomplete key sequence in order to list the
possible completions.

I think this is one of the more important online helps, so it might
be worth mentioning.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Omission in tutorial

[Burton Samograd]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> I just found that the tutorial does not mention the possibility of
> pressing C-h in an incomplete key sequence in order to list the
> possible completions.
>
> I think this is one of the more important online helps, so it might
> be worth mentioning.

Yeah, I second that.  I've been using emacs for over 12 years and
never knew about that...and of course by some strange coincidence I
was wishing for just that command only yesterday...

-- 
burton samograd					kruhft .at. gmail
kruhft.blogspot.com	www.myspace.com/kruhft	metashell.blogspot.com

Re: Omission in tutorial

[Kim F. Storm]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> I just found that the tutorial does not mention the possibility of
> pressing C-h in an incomplete key sequence in order to list the
> possible completions.

This works for emacs -q, but when I try it with my normal setup, e.g.
C-x r C-h, the output is the same output as C-h b -- i.e.  all
bindings, not just the possible completions.

I have yet to find the setting which causes this...

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk

Re: Omission in tutorial

[Richard Stallman]

It is not the job of TUTORIAL to teach everything.
I do not want to consider adding more material to it now.

Re: Omission in tutorial

[David Kastrup]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> It is not the job of TUTORIAL to teach everything.

Well, but it is the job to teach basic self-help.

> I do not want to consider adding more material to it now.

That's what I was worried about as well, in particular because of the
translations.  Still, I find the absence of this particular help
(which in contrast to other online helps can't be found in menus or
tooltips or supplementary messages or the basic C-h menu, for obvious
reasons) disturbing: I don't have a good answer to "how was I supposed
to know that?".

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Omission in tutorial

[Luc Teirlinck]

David Kastrup wrote:

   Still, I find the absence of this particular help
   (which in contrast to other online helps can't be found in menus or
   tooltips or supplementary messages or the basic C-h menu, for obvious
   reasons) disturbing: I don't have a good answer to "how was I supposed
   to know that?".

By reading the Emacs manual.  See `(emacs)Help'.

Sincerely,

Luc.

Re: Omission in tutorial

[Stuart D. Herring]

> That's what I was worried about as well, in particular because of the
> translations.  Still, I find the absence of this particular help
> (which in contrast to other online helps can't be found in menus or
> tooltips or supplementary messages or the basic C-h menu, for obvious
> reasons) disturbing: I don't have a good answer to "how was I supposed
> to know that?".

*Note (emacs)Misc Help::.

Davis

-- 
This product is sold by volume, not by mass.  If it appears too dense or
too sparse, it is because mass-energy conversion has occurred during
shipping.

Re: Omission in tutorial

[David Kastrup]

"Stuart D. Herring" <herring@lanl.gov> writes:

>> That's what I was worried about as well, in particular because of
>> the translations.  Still, I find the absence of this particular
>> help (which in contrast to other online helps can't be found in
>> menus or tooltips or supplementary messages or the basic C-h menu,
>> for obvious reasons) disturbing: I don't have a good answer to "how
>> was I supposed to know that?".
>
> *Note (emacs)Misc Help::.

I can tell people to read and work through the tutorial for getting
the hang of Emacs' basic operation.  To ask that for the whole manual
for something as basic in the "self-documenting" feature set of Emacs
is not likely to go down well...

The question is whether the functionality is basic and helpful and
non-obvious enough to warrant putting into the tutorial, not whether
there is documentation _anywhere_.  I remain of the opinion that it
would be a good idea, at least after the release, to mention this in
the tutorial.  Feel free to convince me otherwise.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Omission in tutorial

[Lennart Borgman]

David Kastrup wrote:
> The question is whether the functionality is basic and helpful and
> non-obvious enough to warrant putting into the tutorial, not whether
> there is documentation _anywhere_.  I remain of the opinion that it
> would be a good idea, at least after the release, to mention this in
> the tutorial.  Feel free to convince me otherwise.
>   
It is very basic and as it seems very unknown. In my opinion it is an 
excellent tool for the beginner so it should be in the tutorial! 
(Actually I believe that it is more basic than some things that already 
are there - but that might be since I use viper ;-)

Re: Omission in tutorial

[Stuart D. Herring]

> I can tell people to read and work through the tutorial for getting
> the hang of Emacs' basic operation.  To ask that for the whole manual
> for something as basic in the "self-documenting" feature set of Emacs
> is not likely to go down well...
>
> The question is whether the functionality is basic and helpful and
> non-obvious enough to warrant putting into the tutorial, not whether
> there is documentation _anywhere_.  I remain of the opinion that it
> would be a good idea, at least after the release, to mention this in
> the tutorial.  Feel free to convince me otherwise.

Upon looking at the tutorial and its references to the manual, it seems to
me that either the C-h "suffix key" or the info node on help should be
mentioned in the tutorial's section on "GETTING MORE HELP" (at some
point).  The benefit of referencing the info node would be that all the
help functions are already described there; perhaps some of the tutorial's
explanations (for, say, C-h c and C-h f) could then be removed to make up
for the addition of the reference.

Davis

PS: David: It occurs to me that my previous message was not only short in
the literal sense but also quite easily taken to be short in the
conversational sense.  Apologies.

-- 
This product is sold by volume, not by mass.  If it appears too dense or
too sparse, it is because mass-energy conversion has occurred during
shipping.

Re: Omission in tutorial

[David Kastrup]

"Stuart D. Herring" <herring@lanl.gov> writes:

> PS: David: It occurs to me that my previous message was not only
> short in the literal sense but also quite easily taken to be short
> in the conversational sense.  Apologies.

I think that the people on this list have enough reading to do to be
glad for not having to skip through niceties.  We have no conventions
for marking comment matter in mail other than writing between the
lines.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Omission in tutorial

[Burton Samograd]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> It is not the job of TUTORIAL to teach everything.
> I do not want to consider adding more material to it now.

Maybe consider adding it to the Wiki, or I could if you don't have the
time.

-- 
burton samograd					kruhft .at. gmail
kruhft.blogspot.com	www.myspace.com/kruhft	metashell.blogspot.com