From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs Mini Manual (PART 3) - CUSTOMIZING AND EXTENDING EMACS Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 23:36:55 +0200 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: <87bnsz1qiw.fsf@debian.uxu> References: <5eaf0440-3124-4d89-bd20-ddada9a3db12@googlegroups.com> <87r425qi4t.fsf@debian.uxu> <619ae998-2ce5-428d-bec7-a654427b81d0@googlegroups.com> <87k37nzy2q.fsf@debian.uxu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1404960727 32661 80.91.229.3 (10 Jul 2014 02:52:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 02:52:07 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jul 10 04:52:03 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1X54So-0001d6-FC for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Jul 2014 04:52:02 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57970 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1X4d7c-0002e5-Rr for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 08 Jul 2014 17:40:20 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.kjsl.com!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!news.etla.org!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 79 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: SIvZRMPqRkkTHAHL6NkRuw.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:9NFV/Z3ScbfyTvNX7wZIX6FraHg= Mail-Copies-To: never Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:206323 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:98613 Archived-At: solidius4747@gmail.com writes: > The recent GNU Emacs Manual is more than 600 pages > long: > http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/pdf/emacs.pdf > > It includes packages like Semantic, EDE, Calc, > GUD... (I am using these packages myself). That's a > lot of features. Certainly, users won't need to learn > of those to be productive. It depends what packages and what users, and what they do. > It's likely that users usually read cover from cover I think that is very unlikely for the majority of Emacs users. But it is not a bad idea to do - on the contrary... > so they will be distracted by unnecessary stuffs not > needed at the moment. The exported PDF of part 1 is > only 43 pages long and part 3 is 83 pages > long. Certainly mini compared to the actual manual. I think "mini" is 1-3 pages. But you wrote it, you name it. of course. > I also added screencasts to demonstrate what Emacs is > capable of. Screencast = screenshot or dump? If so, that's great. Those are very informative for the trained eye and there is no coincidence that computer magazines are always littered with those. In the accursed computer science world, they don't do that a lot (at all) but there is actually no one stopping you, so just do it where it helps. One thing with the computer magazines though, they tend to include very small screenshots, often you cannot see. I think screenshots should be half a page or at least one fourth a page to be truly telling. Often it doesn't help to litter them with arrows and boxes. It is better to add this in the description beneath the image, with "down left" (etc.) instead of arrows and the like. > I want to ensure the new users that learning Emacs > worth their time. I also explicitly stated that the > official Emacs manual is the next place they should > look for if they want to get the most of Emacs. My > manual only provides a starting point. Yeah, I suppose it isn't wrong to think up some logical order but in reality I don't think it works that way most of the time. I don't think people start reading one thing, completes it, then the next thing at a somewhat higher level, until they master it. They read some, experiment some, use the help some, Google some, ... > MELPA is really useful. It helped me to discover many > useful packages and ease package management. Before > that, I added packages as submodules in my .emacs.d > git repo. I think once users know MELPA, even if they > do not know what they want, they will explore the > packages, install and play with it - like I did - and > discover features not available in other editors; for > example, Helm, Magit, undo-tree... If they know how to do that... And you have a good opportunity to teach them what you know. > As for searching and filtering packages using the > package manager, I will add it. Yeah? :) Cool. -- underground experts united