Initial splash screen (was Re: A wish, a plea)

[Stephen Berman <Stephen.Berman@gmx.net>]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 10:11:07 +0200 David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:

> Sascha Wilde <wilde@sha-bang.de> writes:
>
>> Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> wrote:
>>
>>> How about if Emacs left the splash screen as the active buffer if there
>>> were no files listed on the command-line, until the user deliberately
>>> switches buffers (either with C-x C-f to edit a new file, or C-x b to
>>> *scratch*)
>>
>> Please don't.  There is nothing more useless than a splash screen --
>> there is a good reason, that we have inhibit-splash-screen.
>
> By the way: I think that our choice of having the splash screen
> displayed by default even when Emacs is called with a file name is a
> mistake.  Even more so if the same happens when using emacsclient.

This may have been suggested before (I haven't searched the archives
for it), but since the issue has been raised again, what about this:
show the splash screen the first time the user invokes Emacs (even
with a file name) and ask whether to show it on the next invocation.
Lot of programs do something similar, usually with popup windows
displaying a tip of the day, and the information in the splash screen
is partly like a TOTD.  Having users answer the question has two
advantages: it forces them to take notice of the splash screen at
least the first time they invoke Emacs, and it provides them with the
immediate opportunity to disable it on future invocations.

Steve Berman