From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: help-fns.el patch for commands to describe options and commands Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:57:45 -0400 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1192892450 13416 80.91.229.12 (20 Oct 2007 15:00:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2007 15:00:50 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Drew Adams" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Oct 20 17:00:51 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IjFoi-00043G-5A for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 20 Oct 2007 17:00:44 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IjFoa-0005YV-OJ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 20 Oct 2007 11:00:36 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IjFlr-0002DN-7h for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:57:47 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IjFlq-0002CN-7l for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:57:46 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IjFlp-0002C5-Tk for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:57:45 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IjFlp-0001rD-Hb for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:57:45 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IjFlp-0003hK-4s; Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:57:45 -0400 In-reply-to: X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:81303 Archived-At: Attached is a patch for help-fns.el. It modifies `describe-function' and `describe-variable', so that a prefix arg means that candidates are commands and user options, respectively. So `C-u C-h f' shows and accepts only commands as completion candidates, and `C-u C-h v' shows and accepts only user options for completion. That doesn't sound very useful to me. What is the benefit it seeks to provide? Only to limit completion? I won't object to installing it, but I do not want to document it in the Emacs Manual, because it isn't worth the paper. In addition, for convenience, two new commands are defined to do the same thing without `C-u': `describe-command' and `describe-option'. This is especially useful for newbies, who might search for something that describes a command or an option. I don't think this is is going to be useful for newbies. They won't learn these commands. If they remember anything relevant it will be C-h f and C-h v. C-h f works with commands just as with noninteractive functions; C-h v works with user options just as with other variables. If you are saying that you think some newbies will type M-x describe-command to look for a command, I think that will be quite rare. If we want to make that work, the simplest way is to alias describe-command to describe-function.