Re: Menu commands to M-x history?

[Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 3:43 AM, Richard Stallman<rms@gnu.org> wrote:
>    > Menu commands are all commands that can be started from M-x.  I think
>    > they should be added to M-x history.
>
>    This seems like a good idea. Whether a command is run with M-x, a menu
>    item, or a button, the semantics should be identical.
>
> The only "M-x history" in Emacs is the history list used for reading
> the argument of M-x.  That should only be used for arguments that you
> enter in the M-x command.
>
> Keyboard keys also run commands that you could run with M-x, but
> putting their names in the M-x history list would not be consistent or
> useful.


It would not be useful to put commands run by keyboard keys in the
history of course since the user already knows a good way to start the
command. I therefore did not suggest that. Sorry if you misunderstod
me.

Regarding the consistency I do not mind. We do similar things in other
parts of Emacs. On this level, ie UI, the usefulness is more
important, at least to my understanding. And the history list is only
for usefulness, it's target is the user. Not the developer.


> It is the same for menu-run commands.


No. For menu-run commands the user may need some help. One of the
reasons for using menus is that you do not know the command name.

Putting the commands in the history makes it easier to remember.
Consider the case that a user used a menu command and then a while
later want to do the same thing again. Then having the command in the
history would be useful (both to new and old users, actually).

However what I wonder is if other find such a feature useful. It is
not tremendously important, but small things adds together.


> There is also command-history, which gets all commands
> that read an argument from the terminal, whether or not they
> were run from a menu.


Yes, but that is not very helpful here, or?