Re: The minibuffer vs. Dialog Boxes (Re: Making XEmacs be more up-to-date)

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il>]

On 23 Apr 2002, Brady Montz wrote:

> > Sounds good, but how does a user get into the ring in the first place?
> 
> Lessee, we currently have:
> 1. the help menu
> 2. the items on the splash page
> 
> those seem a good start. 

Yes, but I thought you were unhappy with the current UI that enters help, 
including the menu bar.  I thought you were suggesting something 
different...

> 1. a button on the toolbar and/or in the menu to describe the current modes.
> 2. "what's this?" tooltips or buttons.
> 3. a minor mode like eldoc that makes the symbols in your elisp files
>    clickable, just like we have for info and man pages. Click on a
>    symbol to find out more. 

...like this.

> "What's this?" might be particularly useful for the modeline. 

Emacs 21 implements some of that with tooltips that pop up depending on 
the area of the mode line where you place the mouse pointer.  For 
example, place it on the "%%" marker, and a tooltip will pop up saying 
"Read-only buffer, mouse-3 toggles".  I think this should be used in more 
parts of the display.