From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Michael Toomim Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: The minibuffer vs. Dialog Boxes (Re: Making XEmacs be more up-to-date) Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 20:21:05 -0700 Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1019359475 27868 127.0.0.1 (21 Apr 2002 03:24:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 03:24:35 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Terje Bless , Eli Zaretskii , jas@extundo.com, bradym@balestra.org, xemacs-design@xemacs.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 16z7xr-0007FN-00 for ; Sun, 21 Apr 2002 05:24:35 +0200 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 16z7xt-0000DD-00 for ; Sun, 21 Apr 2002 05:24:37 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 16z7xT-0006qo-00; Sat, 20 Apr 2002 23:24:11 -0400 Original-Received: from front1.mail.megapathdsl.net ([66.80.60.31]) by fencepost.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 16z7uR-0006nV-00 for ; Sat, 20 Apr 2002 23:21:03 -0400 Original-Received: from [216.36.77.18] (HELO cheeseskin) by front1.mail.megapathdsl.net (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 3.5.8) with ESMTP id 25266960; Sat, 20 Apr 2002 20:15:37 -0700 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=cs.berkeley.edu ident=toomim) by cheeseskin with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 16z7uU-00027g-00; Sat, 20 Apr 2002 20:21:06 -0700 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.9) Gecko/20020412 Debian/0.9.9-6 X-Accept-Language: en Original-To: Hrvoje Niksic Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:2899 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:2899 Hrvoje Niksic wrote: > I see your point, I really do, but I don't have a good idea how to > fill this gap. I think the tools like `M-x edmacro' (have you tried > it? -- `M-x edit-kbd-macro') are a good first step because they make > it easy to translate keystrokes and the "editing" stuff you see into > the Lisp stuff underneath. Then it's not hard to mess with the Lisp > stuff without having to have a deep understanding about it. `M-x > customize' is another example of the same, but fails to deliver for > similar reasons -- still too complex and "hard". Wait.. isn't this the whole point of this thread? I thought this was about figuring out what what could be done to XEmacs to make it more mainstream -- to make it usable to those who haven't been assimilated? In my mind, XEmacs provides a few very cool features that aren't dependent upon the lisp extensibility (other than in that they grew out of lisp extensions) that would be extremely useful to the mainstream user: i-search, program-code auto-indentation, iswitchb, full-featured syntax highlighting, etc. as well as more than a few more advanced features that enhance one's intimacy with the editor: dynamic abbrevs, structural navigation (C-M-d, C-M-b, etc.), and the like. In my mind, the point behind this "the future of XEmacs" idea is to figure out how to generate a version (or dialect) of XEmacs that gives mainstream users access to the really cool functionality that XEmacs has to offer. If we don't think that XEmacs can ever "fill the gap"; that it can ever be useful to a user who isn't willing or prepared to go through the hazing ritual, then why are we even talking about this at all?