"About Emacs" page

[Summer Emacs <summeremacs@summerstar.me>]

Hi again,
I’m starting a new thread because it’s a different topic. It ties in to my Newbie project, but it’s separate so I don’t want to confuse the two.

Okay, I’m going to detail here what I think about the “About Emacs” page (C-h C-a) which everyone first sees when they boot up Emacs for the first time. This isn’t about my project in particular, but I think it will zoom out a bit and show people how I see it (if anyone is interested - feel free to skip this all if it doesn’t interest you at all):

When you first start up Emacs for the first time, you get to the page “About Emacs” (C-h C-a). From there, you have links to (in sequential order):

Authors
Contributing

GNU and Freedom
Absence of Warranty
Copying Conditions
Getting New Versions
Ordering Manuals

Emacs Tutorial
Emacs Guided Tour
Emacs Manual

Breakdown:
Okay. This is literally the first thing a new user sees (as far as I can remember) when they start up Emacs. It’s good we have a landing page, but let’s look at how it’s ordered for a completely new user:

1) Authors/Contributing - this is great. I approve and I think having links to that is important to recognise the huge task people do for the project. However, most new users aren’t going to be clicking on that right away as they still don’t know anything about Emacs. That would, imho, go towards the bottom of this important list.

2) GNU and Freedom - There’s a philosophy here about Emacs, I recognise that, but is it really what most people want to read about when they first open up Emacs? I actually found it to be an interesting read and I can go into my views if anyone wants to ask, but I’m not really here to discuss philosophy straight away - I’m here to write in Emacs, save my writing, and publish or do anything else I want to do. Getting into the philosophy of Emacs might be important (I think it is at times), but it’s not foremost on people’s minds when they first open Emacs.

3) Absence of Warranty - Okay. Legal. Important to understand but..a little scary. If you’re trying a new product, you don’t want one of the FIRST things you see to say “use at your own risk”. That might be an important piece of info, but we’re not trying to tell them that Emacs is risky when they first open it up. Let’s put that at the bottom. Let’s orient them before we warn them about anything and explain the warning. People tend to read the first line and go with that and even if you have an explanation behind the link, they may not read it. So let’s not put that at the top.

4) Copying Conditions - That’s another great link to have. I think it’s important to the philosophy and legal stuff of Emacs but, again, belongs at the bottom with the philosophy/legal stuff. Most people don’t open up Microsoft Word and click on the legal stuff. Sure, they *should* at some point (we’re all Emacs users here after all so we all agree about some things in general), but *do* they? No. What would be better is to allude to it and introduce them to some concepts on the go in the new users (newbie) tutorial.

5) Getting New Versions - Good link to have, not so helpful at the top though. Put it at the bottom below the Emacs philosophy/legal section.

6) Ordering Manuals - This is good! But, it should be under the new users/Emacs tutorials in the same grouping. It makes sense to put it there as it’s the same subject. It’ll still be in the top section that way but grouped better.

7) Emacs Tutorial - That should be right at the top below the new newbie section which I plan on finishing sometime in the coming weeks. The newbie section will also have a link to the Emacs tutorial and info about how to get back to the newbie pages.

8) Emacs Guided Tour - this is, again, is a great section, however…it’s confusing to new users (as explained in one of my last emails). It should be near the bottom of the top section because it’s not *really* a guided tour. I actually like that it uses eww as it can introduce a new user to the idea that you can use eww to read stuff online (which I do sometimes), but again…just see what I wrote about it previously.

9) Emacs Manual - Good. I like. In depth, interesting, but very difficult for a new user to read through. They have to understand the basics first. I think that should go right under the Emacs tutorial which would be right under the newbie users section at the top.

Okay, so that’s the About Emacs page broken down as I see it. I hope it doesn’t ruffle too many feathers. Notice: I don’t want to remove anything from that page. Ideally, add the newbie link at the top and rearrange a few things. At worst: add the newbie link at the top.

But since I’m analysing this from my perspective, I’ll give another quick take and I hope I don’t insult anyone here, this is not my intention please believe me:

The logo.

Ok. I kinda like the logo, but it’s…it looks old. It’s very basic and it has a lot of confusing lines all over the place. It’s a bit messy, to be honest.

What would I replace it with? Well, I favour something like the logos represented here:

https://github.com/egstatsml/emacs_fancy_logos

It's still the Emacs logo, but it looks more modern. I’m not saying we should use *those* in particular, but you can see how it changes things up a little bit while it keeps the Emacs logo the same and adds some nicer colours to the whole arrangement. Again: I don’t want to get rid of the Gnu, I like the Gnu. I think the Gnu is awesome. I just think some might want to consider using a logo with the Gnu that is something a bit more…this century than last. Emacs isn’t just about the past, it's about the future too.

Again: Right now I’m focused on the Newbie project, not the About Emacs page. But I figured since the link would be there (ideally), we might want to take a fresh look at that page itself - especially since I’ve had feedback concerning “keeping up with the times”.

In summation, the new order would read something like this:

Emacs Logo (as usual or changed - either way)

—> New Emacs User? Click here. <--
Emacs Tutorial
Emacs Manual
Emacs Guided Tour
Ordering Manuals

GNU and Freedom
Copying Conditions
Getting New Versions
Absence of Warranty

Authors
Contributing

Thank you for reading such a long email.

Note: I’m super busy every day and even during the evenings and night. I have a job which involves a lot of social activity at times, so if you reply to emails in the thread, I will read them - I just won’t necessarily be able to answer them all. If anyone wants to chat with me during the day or evenings, I can usually be found in #systemcrafters or #emacs under the nick SummerEmacs on Libera of course.


Summer Emacs ☀️🐃 
summeremacs@summerstar.me
“Shake it Off <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_JiMkVx0FU>” - Taylor Swift 💖