[drew.adams@oracle.com: RE: add Help item to Text Properties menu -> Emacs manual node EditingFormat Information]

[drew.adams@oracle.com: RE: add Help item to Text Properties menu -> Emacs manual node EditingFormat Information]

[Richard Stallman]

What do people think about this proposed patch?
Drew thinks that the Text Properties menu is hard to understand,
and that an item to bring up the relevant section of the Emacs Manual
would be useful.


From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
To: <rms@gnu.org>
Subject: RE: add Help item to Text Properties menu -> Emacs manual node EditingFormat Information
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 11:12:52 -0800
Message-ID: <DNEMKBNJBGPAOPIJOOICCEELECAA.drew.adams@oracle.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-15"
In-Reply-To: <E1J7t05-0006by-Mz@fencepost.gnu.org>

Thanks for working on this.

Here's a patch for #1. I just added a `Help' item; I didn't try any of the
possible enhancements mentioned, which are beyond my ken and might need to
be done with C, not Lisp.

Thx - Drew

---8<-------------

*** facemenu-CVS-2007-12-27-.el	Thu Dec 27 10:42:00 2007
--- facemenu-patched-2007-12-27.el	Thu Dec 27 11:06:46 2007
***************
*** 254,259 ****
--- 254,262 ----
  (setq facemenu-menu (make-sparse-keymap "Text Properties"))
  ;;;###autoload
  (let ((map facemenu-menu))
+   (define-key map [help] (cons (purecopy "Help")
+                                (lambda () (interactive) (info
"(emacs)Editing Format Info"))))
+   (define-key map [s0] (list (purecopy "--")))
    (define-key map [dc] (cons (purecopy "Display Colors")
'list-colors-display))
    (define-key map [df] (cons (purecopy "Display Faces")
'list-faces-display))
    (define-key map [dp] (cons (purecopy "Describe Properties")

---8<-------------

RE: [drew.adams@oracle.com: RE: add Help item to Text Properties menu-> Emacs manual node EditingFormat Information]

[Drew Adams]

> What do people think about this proposed patch?
> Drew thinks that the Text Properties menu is hard to understand,
> and that an item to bring up the relevant section of the Emacs Manual
> would be useful.

> Here's a patch for #1. I just added a `Help' item; I didn't try any of the
> possible enhancements mentioned, which are beyond my ken and might need to
> be done with C, not Lisp.

FWIW, these are the possible enhancements that I mentioned, which we might
also think about:

> [Possible general enhancement: It would be good if users could,
> generally, click the title of a popup menu (e.g. Text Properties)
> to bring up the corresponding help in the manual. I've never seen
> that anywhere, but I think it would be helpful. Alternative, which
> would work for all menus, not just popups: Whenever a menu name or
> menu item is selected (inverse video), be able to click C-h or F1
> to bring up its help.]

IOW, just as you can do `C-h k' and choose a menu item to find something out
about it, so you could choose a menu or submenu itself to get help about it
(whan available).

This would extend help to non-leaf menu nodes (menus and submenus), and it
would also provide mofe help (open the manual) for leaf nodes (menu items).