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* Emacs setup assistants
@ 2004-05-18 20:55 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
  2004-05-19  6:34 ` David Kastrup
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 60+ messages in thread
From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2004-05-18 20:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  Cc: emacs-devel

One project that's been on my mind (well, far back of my mind) for a
few years has been to implement something that would make it easy to
set up complex stuff by guiding the user through the process.

This differs from Customize by being a guided tour through the
options, not just a big whopping menu of stuff to twiddle.

For instance, when setting Gnus up for reading news, an assistant
would look around the environment for sensible news server defaults,
present these to the user, ask for corrections, and at the end check
whether the information given is sensible (ie., that the news server
exists).  (That's a pretty trivial example; setting up spam handling
or mail reading is much more complicated.  :-)

My original plan was to use something HTML-like, and use w3, but Per
Abraahmsen suggested using something more TeXinfo like, and I thought
that was a really groovy idea, so here's an example assistant
specification.

(It's a mock-up; no code has been written, and most assistants would
have more pages than one.)

-----------
@title Configuring Gnus for reading news
@node Server name and port
@variable server :string (gnus-getenv-nntpserver)
@variable port :number 119
@validate
(let ((stream
        (condition-case err
           (open-network-stream "nntpd" nil server port)
          (error (setq error err)))))
   (if (memq (process-status stream) '(open run))
       (progn
         (delete-process stream)
         t)
     nil)))
@end validate
@result gnus-select-method (list server port)
@text
To read Usenet news with Gnus, you first have to tell
Gnus where the news server is.

The server name is @variable{server}; port number @variable{port}.
@end text
-----------

Rendering this is another issue.

I'm posting this here (on the Emacs and XEmacs development lists) to
let all y'all know what's up, and get the loud objections that I'm
sure are imminent...  :-)

And also -- would actually extending the texinfo.el parser be a good
idea, or should I just roll my own (which would call texinfo.el
functions, of course)?
 
-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 60+ messages in thread
* RE: Emacs setup assistants
@ 2004-05-26 11:48 Berndl, Klaus
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 60+ messages in thread
From: Berndl, Klaus @ 2004-05-26 11:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
  Cc: 'emacs-devel@gnu.org ', 'xemacs-beta@xemacs.org '

>> From: Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>
>> Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 14:16:35 -0400
>> 
>> Power users don't need assistants.

>I disagree.  Power users don't need assistance in setting up something
>that they are already power users at.  But when they need to set up
>something they never did before, they could use assistance.  At least
>I do.

Me too - i consider myself as a power-user of Emacs and in most cases i would bet that i'm able to find out what i need by using apropos, the info-manual etc... but what i really hate is wasting my time by digging around all the manuals when setting up things could also be offered more simple by a well designed assistant.

It's always the same game: There a two takewrs in this game, one is the author of a software (e.g. a complex and powerful emacs-addon, like auctex, semantic, ecb, gnus etc. etc.) and the user of a software (here acting for all the other billions of users of the same software). And one of these two takers must invest time and effort to make this peace of software best usable: If the author desides to offer good manuals and also good assistants then he must invest maybe a lot of time and effort for this but all other users will save a lot of time. On the other hand, if the author of a software wants to save time then all users have to spend a lot of time.... now every one can compute for himself, what is better for all the time available at the world ;-)

IMO (X)Emacs  should offer a well designed backbone so package-authors (and the core-Emacs-authors too) can offer assistants so user's live will become  easier... The live of Emacs-newbies is hard enough ;-)

Klaus



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 60+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2004-05-30  8:15 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 60+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2004-05-18 20:55 Emacs setup assistants Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
2004-05-19  6:34 ` David Kastrup
2004-05-19  7:32   ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
2004-05-19 10:31     ` David Kastrup
2004-05-19 15:29       ` Ted Zlatanov
2004-05-19 20:49         ` Thien-Thi Nguyen
2004-05-19 21:35           ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
2004-05-20 13:17       ` Richard Stallman
2004-05-20 17:31         ` Ted Zlatanov
2004-05-21 14:12           ` Richard Stallman
2004-05-21 17:42             ` Ted Zlatanov
2004-05-21 19:09               ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
2004-05-21 18:32             ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-05-22 21:44               ` Richard Stallman
2004-05-19  8:18   ` Per Abrahamsen
2004-05-19  9:59     ` Juri Linkov
2004-05-20  7:25       ` David Kastrup
2004-05-20  9:43         ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-05-20 10:57           ` David Kastrup
2004-05-20 13:44             ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-05-20 17:00               ` David Kastrup
2004-05-20 18:31                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-05-20 19:05                   ` Jon Ericson
2004-05-20 19:07                   ` Ted Zlatanov
2004-05-21 18:12                     ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-05-21 18:04                       ` Ted Zlatanov
2004-05-22 11:09                         ` Per Abrahamsen
2004-05-24 14:10                           ` Ted Zlatanov
2004-05-24 19:46                             ` David Kastrup
2004-05-25 18:16                               ` Ted Zlatanov
2004-05-25 20:59                                 ` Juri Linkov
2004-05-25 22:57                                   ` A.J. Rossini
2004-05-25 23:19                                     ` Miles Bader
2004-05-26  7:11                                       ` David Kastrup
2004-05-26 14:04                                         ` Ted Zlatanov
2004-05-27  8:50                                           ` David Kastrup
2004-05-26 14:06                                     ` Ted Zlatanov
2004-05-26 22:14                                     ` Juri Linkov
2004-05-26 18:57                                   ` Per Abrahamsen
2004-05-26 10:42                                 ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-05-26 13:59                                   ` Ted Zlatanov
2004-05-27 23:54                                   ` Richard Stallman
2004-05-26 15:26                             ` Stefan Monnier
2004-05-27 15:07                               ` Ted Zlatanov
2004-05-27 16:59                                 ` René Kyllingstad
2004-05-27 16:59                                 ` René Kyllingstad
2004-05-22 13:28                         ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-05-20 20:57                   ` David Kastrup
2004-05-21 17:57                     ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-05-22 11:01                       ` Per Abrahamsen
2004-05-21 14:11                   ` Richard Stallman
2004-05-29  1:26               ` David A. Cobb
2004-05-30  8:15                 ` Per Abrahamsen
2004-05-20 10:00       ` Per Abrahamsen
2004-05-19  6:43 ` David Kastrup
2004-05-19 13:45 ` Richard Stallman
2004-05-19 15:04   ` David Kastrup
2004-05-19 20:07     ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-05-19 16:41   ` Ted Zlatanov
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2004-05-26 11:48 Berndl, Klaus

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