The splash screens

The splash screens

[Mathias Dahl]

I decided to try out the new splash screen and I have to say that I
like it much better than the old version. I was also curious to see
how it looked in no window mode and was surprised that the two splash
screens was so different.

In -nw mode:

1. There are much fewer options. Is this because of limited screen
(terminal) estate?

2. Only a few choices are "linked", why not make all of them linked so
that you can navigate to them easily with TAB? In window mode they are
all linked.

3. The layout and information is very different in some respects. In
the window version there are links to Absence of Warranty and Getting
New Versions, while in -nw mode this is expressed with a special
section that comes below all the choices.

In window mode:

1. Why mention twice how to recover a crashed session? It feels like
it would be enough to keep the note at the bottom of the screen
(hopefully recovering crashed sessions is not so common so keeping it
at the bottom is OK).

2. The useful tasks like visiting a new file comes too far down, in my
opinion. They are much more visible in -nw mode.

3. Do we really need to mention Useful File menu items? A user will
find Exit Emacs easily enough and Recover Crashed Session is kind of
self explaining as well. Removing this section would bring the Useful
tasks more into focus.

4. I think we could move the following to the bottom:

 Absence of Warranty
 Copying Conditions
 Getting New Versions
 More Manuals / Ordering Manuals

General:

Some items have the key bindings printed, some don't and I don't see
any logic in which are printed and not. In window mode there are very
few bindings printed.

I like the -nw splash screen better as it is shorter and more concise.

Comments?

/Mathias

Re: The splash screens

[Juri Linkov]

> In -nw mode:
>
> 1. There are much fewer options. Is this because of limited screen
> (terminal) estate?

I don't know.  Maybe this screen was designed with the requirement
of 25 lines for the terminal height.  In this case, with the addition
of useful tasks, the startup screen now has 28 lines, so 3 final lines
about recover-session are not visible on 80x25 terminals.

> 2. Only a few choices are "linked", why not make all of them linked so
> that you can navigate to them easily with TAB? In window mode they are
> all linked.

There are descriptions of key bindings after each item, but I agree
that better to turn them into links.

> 3. The layout and information is very different in some respects. In
> the window version there are links to Absence of Warranty and Getting
> New Versions, while in -nw mode this is expressed with a special
> section that comes below all the choices.

I don't know the reason, but we can add links for this text too.

> In window mode:
>
> 1. Why mention twice how to recover a crashed session? It feels like
> it would be enough to keep the note at the bottom of the screen
> (hopefully recovering crashed sessions is not so common so keeping it
> at the bottom is OK).

Yes, I agree.

> 2. The useful tasks like visiting a new file comes too far down, in my
> opinion. They are much more visible in -nw mode.
>
> 3. Do we really need to mention Useful File menu items? A user will
> find Exit Emacs easily enough and Recover Crashed Session is kind of
> self explaining as well. Removing this section would bring the Useful
> tasks more into focus.

Or we can move the "Useful tasks" section before the "Useful File menu"
section.

> 4. I think we could move the following to the bottom:
>
>  Absence of Warranty
>  Copying Conditions
>  Getting New Versions
>  More Manuals / Ordering Manuals

Yes, after the copyright line.

> General:
>
> Some items have the key bindings printed, some don't and I don't see
> any logic in which are printed and not. In window mode there are very
> few bindings printed.

Actually there are three different startup (and About) screens:

1. for graphic displays
2. for terminals with mouse available
3. for terminals without mouse

There are no bindings printed if the user can select menu items
using the mouse.

> I like the -nw splash screen better as it is shorter and more concise.

I agree that the graphic screen should be shorter.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/

Re: The splash screens

[Mathias Dahl]

> > 3. Do we really need to mention Useful File menu items? A user will
> > find Exit Emacs easily enough and Recover Crashed Session is kind of
> > self explaining as well. Removing this section would bring the Useful
> > tasks more into focus.
>
> Or we can move the "Useful tasks" section before the "Useful File menu"
> section.

Yes, that would work too, and ensure that the userful tasks be more visible.

> > 4. I think we could move the following to the bottom:
> >
> >  Absence of Warranty
> >  Copying Conditions
> >  Getting New Versions
> >  More Manuals / Ordering Manuals
>
> Yes, after the copyright line.

Yes, I think it would fit well there.

> Actually there are three different startup (and About) screens:
>
> 1. for graphic displays
> 2. for terminals with mouse available
> 3. for terminals without mouse
>
> There are no bindings printed if the user can select menu items
> using the mouse.

I think this is bad. I have a mouse and use it for "mousy" things, but
Emacs is very keyboard centric, so why not always display the
bindings?

> I agree that the graphic screen should be shorter.

Yes, or at least we could move the lines around to get focus on what a
new user needs the most.

Are we the only ones that have an opinion on this? :) Or, is maybe the
focus on these things in the never ending *scratch*-thread?

Re: The splash screens

[Juri Linkov]

>> Actually there are three different startup (and About) screens:
>>
>> 1. for graphic displays
>> 2. for terminals with mouse available
>> 3. for terminals without mouse
>>
>> There are no bindings printed if the user can select menu items
>> using the mouse.
>
> I think this is bad. I have a mouse and use it for "mousy" things, but
> Emacs is very keyboard centric, so why not always display the
> bindings?

I'm afraid there is no place to print key bindings on mouse-enabled screens.

> Are we the only ones that have an opinion on this? :) Or, is maybe the
> focus on these things in the never ending *scratch*-thread?

Yep, much of the discussion is on the annoying scratch buffer thread.
I mean "annoying scratch buffer", not "annoying thread" :-)

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/

Re: The splash screens

[Mathias Dahl]

How about the following layout, my comments inside parentheses. This
is for the graphical splash screen:

---
[image, if people think it should be there]

GNU Emacs is one component of the GNU/Linux operating system.
You can do basic editing with the menu bar and scroll bar using the mouse.
To quit a partially entered command, type Control-g.

Important Help menu items:
Emacs Tutorial		Learn how to use Emacs efficiently
Emacs FAQ		Frequently asked questions and answers
View Emacs Manual		View the Emacs manual using Info
Emacs Guided Tour		See http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ (*has
to be added to the Help menu)

(*btw, on my system, there seem to be a TAB character too much on the
last two lines above, the descriptions are not lined up well)

Useful tasks:
Visit New File		Specify a new file's name, to edit the file
Open Home Directory	Open your home directory, to operate on its files
Open *scratch* buffer	Open buffer for notes you don't want to save
Customize Startup		Change initialization settings including this screen

Useful File menu items: (*do we need this section at all?)
Exit Emacs		(Or type Control-x followed by Control-c)
Recover Crashed Session	Recover files you were editing before a crash
(*duplicate)

Other
Absence of Warranty	GNU Emacs comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Copying Conditions		Conditions for redistributing and changing Emacs
Getting New Versions	How to obtain the latest version of Emacs
More Manuals / Ordering Manuals       Buying printed manuals from the FSF

This is GNU Emacs 22.1.50.19 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.10.3)
 of 2007-08-17 on localhost
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

If an Emacs session crashed recently, type Meta-x recover-session RET
to recover the files you were editing.
---

What do people think?

/Mathias

Re: The splash screens

[Richard Stallman]

    > I think this is bad. I have a mouse and use it for "mousy" things, but
    > Emacs is very keyboard centric, so why not always display the
    > bindings?

    I'm afraid there is no place to print key bindings on mouse-enabled screens.

The purpose of the startup screen is to give basic info to beginners.
I decided that the most useful thing to tell them about is mouse
usage.  That's why the fancy startup screen doesn't list key bindings.

Re: The splash screens

[Juri Linkov]

> How about the following layout, my comments inside parentheses. This
> is for the graphical splash screen:
>
> ---
> [image, if people think it should be there]
>
> GNU Emacs is one component of the GNU/Linux operating system.
> You can do basic editing with the menu bar and scroll bar using the mouse.
> To quit a partially entered command, type Control-g.
>
> Important Help menu items:
> Emacs Tutorial		Learn how to use Emacs efficiently
> Emacs FAQ		Frequently asked questions and answers
> View Emacs Manual		View the Emacs manual using Info
> Emacs Guided Tour		See http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ (*has
> to be added to the Help menu)

I'm not sure whether it's good to start the browser from the Help menu.

> (*btw, on my system, there seem to be a TAB character too much on the
> last two lines above, the descriptions are not lined up well)

This depends on the font size.  I fixed this by changing tabs to one tab, and
setting tab-width to 22.  Now descriptions are lined up regardless of font size.

> Useful tasks:
> Visit New File		Specify a new file's name, to edit the file
> Open Home Directory	Open your home directory, to operate on its files
> Open *scratch* buffer	Open buffer for notes you don't want to save
> Customize Startup		Change initialization settings including this screen
>
> Useful File menu items: (*do we need this section at all?)

No more.

> Exit Emacs		(Or type Control-x followed by Control-c)
> Recover Crashed Session	Recover files you were editing before a crash
> (*duplicate)
>
> Other
> Absence of Warranty	GNU Emacs comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
> Copying Conditions		Conditions for redistributing and changing Emacs
> Getting New Versions	How to obtain the latest version of Emacs
> More Manuals / Ordering Manuals       Buying printed manuals from the FSF

Maybe instead of splitting the section "Important Help menu items",
we should move it completely to after the section "Useful tasks"?
The reason is that it would be more easy to reach the useful tasks
by pressing TAB (less keystrokes).

> This is GNU Emacs 22.1.50.19 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.10.3)
>  of 2007-08-17 on localhost
> Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
>
> If an Emacs session crashed recently, type Meta-x recover-session RET
> to recover the files you were editing.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/

Re: The splash screens

[Mathias Dahl]

> > (*btw, on my system, there seem to be a TAB character too much on the
> > last two lines above, the descriptions are not lined up well)
>
> This depends on the font size.  I fixed this by changing tabs to one tab, and
> setting tab-width to 22.  Now descriptions are lined up regardless of font size.

Much better, thanks!

> > Useful File menu items: (*do we need this section at all?)
>
> No more.

Thanks, looks cleaner now.

> Maybe instead of splitting the section "Important Help menu items",
> we should move it completely to after the section "Useful tasks"?
> The reason is that it would be more easy to reach the useful tasks
> by pressing TAB (less keystrokes).

I think that would work. And with the new and simpler layout the user
will see the heading of this "help" section plus some (I see all, but
that might depend on the font) of the options, which means he won't
need to scoll down to see it.