From: Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>
To: David Masterson <dsmasterson@outlook.com>
Cc: "35261@debbugs.gnu.org" <35261@debbugs.gnu.org>
Subject: bug#35261: 26.1; EBDB Documentation
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2019 11:54:47 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <877ebtlr0o.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <BYAPR07MB5734BFCA4C6BA5993BACEC15A52B0@BYAPR07MB5734.namprd07.prod.outlook.com> (David Masterson's message of "Mon, 15 Apr 2019 20:56:06 +0000")
On 04/15/19 20:56 PM, David Masterson wrote:
> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
[...]
>> This doesn't seem right: it's the `ebdb' command that tells you the
>> database is empty (and that message should include a mention of 'c').
>
> Actually, the first thing that the 'ebdb' seems to do is ask for a
> search string which is a little surprising on an empty database. I can
> see that people might want a quick command to find something in their
> database, but you shouldn't overload the 'ebdb' command that way. Have
> one command (ebdb) to startup EBDB and another command to start it up
> and find a record. Or, perhaps, two separate commands which people
> could always script together.
Okay, it would make sense to have an `ebdb-start' command that just
opens an *EBDB* buffer.
>> 'c' prompts for the creation of a record. Do you remember what sort of
>> error you got during record creation? There shouldn't be anything you
>> have to do in advance, except maybe confirm that you want to create a
>> new database at the default location.
>
> Good point. I kind of messed up that statement. The error I got was an
> error that basically is that I was putting in data for a field that was
> improper for the field. In this case, it was looking for an *email*
> address and I was assuming that any old text string would do. The error
> did not give the clue that it was specifically looking for a string that
> was formatted for "name@machine.com". So, there should be a clue in the
> documentation on how to read the error -- basically that the error is
> pointing out that the input doesn't fit the defined structure and (most
> importantly) how to find out what the defined structure is.
Sure, I can add this as well. Actually I'm on the fence about requiring
a "@" in mail fields at all, as it's possible someone might want to note
a machine-local address for someone. I can't decide. But there are a few
other fields (like the url field) that also do a bit of validation, and
it would be good to explain that.
> On that, it seems that the documentation is still evolving in that
> area. For instance, looking at the documentation of ebdb-field-*
> variables says that they are obsolete as of 25.1 and the documentation
> is relatively low, so the error above would be confusing in that you'd
> wonder if you were looking at the right variable.
Unfortunately this doesn't have to do with EBDB, but rather with a weird
interaction between the help system and EIEIO. Class names apparently
once functioned as variables, but no longer do, and so Emacs complains
when you try to treat one as a variable. You'll have better luck using
help to look up the *function* definitions of the class names, not the
variable definition.
Eric
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-04-16 18:54 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 15+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-04-13 21:26 bug#35261: 26.1; EBDB Documentation David Masterson
2019-04-14 1:50 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-04-15 3:50 ` David Masterson
2019-04-15 5:07 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-04-15 20:56 ` David Masterson
2019-04-16 18:54 ` Eric Abrahamsen [this message]
2019-04-17 3:14 ` David Masterson
2019-04-18 19:51 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-04-19 22:22 ` David Masterson
2019-04-16 21:10 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-04-17 3:41 ` David Masterson
2019-04-18 20:33 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-04-19 22:31 ` David Masterson
2019-04-20 0:00 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-04-21 2:08 ` David Masterson
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=877ebtlr0o.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net \
--to=eric@ericabrahamsen.net \
--cc=35261@debbugs.gnu.org \
--cc=dsmasterson@outlook.com \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this external index
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/org-mode.git
This is an external index of several public inboxes,
see mirroring instructions on how to clone and mirror
all data and code used by this external index.