From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Joe Corneli Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Is Emacs becoming Word? Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 11:08:52 -0600 Message-ID: References: <01c53229$Blat.v2.4$f7086e60@zahav.net.il> <01c53202$Blat.v2.4$fc3ff320@zahav.net.il> <867jjtmmjs.fsf@pallotta.studby.uio.no> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1111943375 31319 80.91.229.2 (27 Mar 2005 17:09:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 17:09:35 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Mar 27 19:09:33 2005 Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DFbGO-0005yp-AY for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 27 Mar 2005 19:09:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DFbWJ-00070s-Hm for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 27 Mar 2005 12:25:51 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DFbVY-0006up-53 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Mar 2005 12:25:05 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DFbVR-0006sd-Lk for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Mar 2005 12:24:58 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DFbVR-0006sL-GI for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Mar 2005 12:24:57 -0500 Original-Received: from [146.6.139.124] (helo=dell3.ma.utexas.edu) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1DFbFt-00007w-IY for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Mar 2005 12:08:53 -0500 Original-Received: from lab45.ma.utexas.edu (mail@lab45.ma.utexas.edu [128.83.133.159]) by dell3.ma.utexas.edu (8.11.0.Beta3/8.10.2) with ESMTP id j2RH8qC17093; Sun, 27 Mar 2005 11:08:52 -0600 Original-Received: from jcorneli by lab45.ma.utexas.edu with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 1DFbFs-0005Aa-00; Sun, 27 Mar 2005 11:08:52 -0600 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org In-reply-to: <867jjtmmjs.fsf@pallotta.studby.uio.no> (steinab@ifi.uio.no) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:25217 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:25217 | > As far as new features being on by default goes, I can understand | > why leaving them on might be a good idea. If I hate them it gives me | > an incentive to read up on them to figure out how to turn them off, | > and if I like them, I'd probably never see them unless they were on | > by default, | | True, but I think a good compromise would be Joe Corneli's idea in the | post he referenced where new features would be "tentatively" turned on | and would explain what they're doing, perhaps in the minibuffer, when | they do something that could be considered "strange." This could also | include instructions about how to turn the behavior off. This would be similar to the features that are currently "disabled" for new users, such as scroll-left. But now I'm thinking that it might be even nicer to be able to get help on the last event, or sequence of events... (apropos "history") doesn't seem to list anything quite like what I'm thinking of. The idea would be that something that behaved like `command-history' (or `view-lossage') but that lists events coming from Emacs, rather than things coming from the user. Furthemore, instead of just saying *what happened*, one should be able to get further information about the functions that have run, specifically, information about their configuration. This would mean that no particular set of distinguished functions would have to be turned on "tentatively", but rather, one could get good contextual help on pretty much any user-visible event.