bug#8180: 24.0.50; verbose, confusing y-or-n-p prompts in `find-file-no-select'

bug#8180: 24.0.50; verbose, confusing y-or-n-p prompts in `find-file-no-select'

[Drew Adams]

There are several `y-or-n-p' prompts in `find-file-no-select' that are
very long (e.g. 6 lines!) and confusing.  Some other (alternative)
user interaction should be found for this.  Either just a short prompt
or, if it is important to convey some background info, then also pop
up an informative window for that.  But do not try to provide such
info in the prompt.
 
This was orginally part of bug #8177.  Eli correctly suggested a
separate bug report for it.  Given the other problem reported in #8177,
these prompts were being seen frequently.  Normally they are seldom
seen, which is probably why this has been broken since Emacs 22.
 
The rest of this bug description is taken from #8177.

 
The annoying dialog you get uses multiple lines of text (6!) to prompt
in the minibuffer (or in a popup, depending on how you invoke the
function) for a y-or-n answer.  The prompt text is *far* too long and
pretty much incomprehensible to an average user.  This is the `y-or-n-p'
prompt (including its line breaks):
 
"The file maybe-a-very-long-file-name.jpg is already visited literally,
meaning no coding system decoding, format conversion, or local variables.
You have asked to visit it normally,
but Emacs can only visit a file in one way at a time.
 
Do you want to revisit the file normally now? (y or n) "
 
That is _ridiculously_ long and confusing.  It is horribly user
unfriendly.  `find-file-noselect' is now filled to the gills with such
gobbledygook prompts, each more twisted and verbose than the next.
 
It's hard to believe that we have been prompting users this way since
Emacs 22 (the prompts for this are much shorter in Emacs 21).
Fortunately, these prompts not encountered very often.
 
In GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2011-02-28 on 3249CTO
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
configured using `configure --with-gcc (4.4) --no-opt --cflags
-Ic:/imagesupport/include'
 

bug#8180: 24.0.50; verbose, confusing y-or-n-p prompts in `find-file-no-select'

[Chong Yidong]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> "The file maybe-a-very-long-file-name.jpg is already visited literally,
> meaning no coding system decoding, format conversion, or local variables.
> You have asked to visit it normally,
> but Emacs can only visit a file in one way at a time.
>
> Do you want to revisit the file normally now? (y or n) "

In the first place, why can't we simultaneously in the normal way and
literally, in different buffers?  Only reason I can think of is that
get-file-buffer currently doesn't distinguish the two types, but we
could add an optional argument to do that.

bug#8180: 24.0.50; verbose, confusing y-or-n-p prompts in `find-file-no-select'

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> There are several `y-or-n-p' prompts in `find-file-no-select' that are
> very long (e.g. 6 lines!) and confusing.  Some other (alternative)
> user interaction should be found for this.  Either just a short prompt
> or, if it is important to convey some background info, then also pop
> up an informative window for that.  But do not try to provide such
> info in the prompt.

[...]

> "The file maybe-a-very-long-file-name.jpg is already visited literally,
> meaning no coding system decoding, format conversion, or local variables.
> You have asked to visit it normally,
> but Emacs can only visit a file in one way at a time.
>
> Do you want to revisit the file normally now? (y or n) "
>
> That is _ridiculously_ long and confusing.  It is horribly user
> unfriendly.  `find-file-noselect' is now filled to the gills with such
> gobbledygook prompts, each more twisted and verbose than the next.

`find-file-no-select' doesn't exist, and `find-file-noselect' isn't a
command...  Are you referring to `find-file-literally'?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#8180: 24.0.50; verbose, confusing y-or-n-p prompts in `find-file-no-select'

[Drew Adams]

> `find-file-no-select' doesn't exist, and `find-file-noselect' isn't a
> command...  Are you referring to `find-file-literally'?

I meant `find-file-noselect', which is used by various
commands.

bug#8180: 24.0.50; verbose, confusing y-or-n-p prompts in `find-file-no-select'

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> The annoying dialog you get uses multiple lines of text (6!) to prompt
> in the minibuffer (or in a popup, depending on how you invoke the
> function) for a y-or-n answer.  The prompt text is *far* too long and
> pretty much incomprehensible to an average user.  This is the `y-or-n-p'
> prompt (including its line breaks):
>
> "The file maybe-a-very-long-file-name.jpg is already visited literally,
> meaning no coding system decoding, format conversion, or local variables.
> You have asked to visit it normally,
> but Emacs can only visit a file in one way at a time.
>
> Do you want to revisit the file normally now? (y or n) "
>
> That is _ridiculously_ long and confusing.  It is horribly user
> unfriendly.  `find-file-noselect' is now filled to the gills with such
> gobbledygook prompts, each more twisted and verbose than the next.

I don't think it's gobbledygook.  You only get a prompt like that if
you've previously visited a file literally, and then you probably know
what that is, because just about the only way to get such a buffer is by
using the `M-x find-file-literally' command.

So I don't see anything to fix here.  Closing.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#8180: 24.0.50; verbose, confusing y-or-n-p prompts in `find-file-no-select'

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Date: Sun, 01 May 2016 19:59:01 +0200
> Cc: 8180@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> > "The file maybe-a-very-long-file-name.jpg is already visited literally,
> > meaning no coding system decoding, format conversion, or local variables.
> > You have asked to visit it normally,
> > but Emacs can only visit a file in one way at a time.
> >
> > Do you want to revisit the file normally now? (y or n) "
> >
> > That is _ridiculously_ long and confusing.  It is horribly user
> > unfriendly.  `find-file-noselect' is now filled to the gills with such
> > gobbledygook prompts, each more twisted and verbose than the next.
> 
> I don't think it's gobbledygook.  You only get a prompt like that if
> you've previously visited a file literally, and then you probably know
> what that is, because just about the only way to get such a buffer is by
> using the `M-x find-file-literally' command.

The prompt used to be just

  "Save file and revisit non-literally? "

but it was enhanced (by Richard, no less), to make it more explicit
and clear.

> So I don't see anything to fix here.  Closing.

I agree.