Re: Menu commands to M-x history?

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

On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 6:21 PM, Drew Adams<drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:
>> Matthias said:
>>     Quite often I execute the same M-x
>>     command over and over again, doing something else in
>>     between, and if what I did in between included executing
>>     some menu commands I might be annoyed to have to step back
>>     some extra steps in order to get at the command I want to run.
>>
>> exactly why is it useful to distinguish between commands started
>> from the menu and from M-x
>
> As someone else said, `M-x' is, well, for `M-x'-executed commands.

Yes, Richard said that but I do not agree. The M-x history is for the users.

Don't mix the programmer semantics with the user semantics unless
there is a good reason to do so. Very often there is, but not in a
case like this.


> That's important for users.

Why is it important for users?


> It is why commands executed using key bindings are also not
> included in the history list.

That is a totally diffirent story since it is a different context as I
said before. You really do not need any of the commands you execute
with a key binding in the M-x history.


> So, I hear you say, filter out insignificant commands - commands such as
> `self-insert-command' and `forward-char'.

That is hallucination ;-)

No one calls these commands from the menus. (You did not intend to say
that, but I could not resist writing this ...)


>> Drew, I think you see what I mean. This reasoning just gets overlay
>> complicated to actually use IMO.
>
> Why? The only change is to provide some key to let you access the additional
> commands.

Because it is intended to be helpful to newbies, Not to experienced Emacs users.


>> And it also have the advantage that it is much easier to redo
>> commands that are rather deep down in the menus.
>
> As opposed to what? Easier to redo than what alternative - using the menu again?

Yes, of course. The reason I am saying that is that there has been
some rather vaugue arguments that menus should not be to deep. (Not
here, but before, Richard has said that for example.)

That they should not be to deep is a valid argument mainly when you
use the commands from the menus often. But it is a bad argument when
you want to use the menus more for finding commands. (We use that
reasoning for example in the help menus.)

In the cases that the menus are deep it can be very helpful to put the
commands in M-x history IMO. And the other ones does not disturb very
much since you either do not use them often or use a key binding for
the commands.


> If that's what you mean, then we agree: It can help users if we also provide
> completion for commands originally accessed using a menu. The question we seem
> to disagree about is whether those commands should be available for completion
> _by default_, that is, as part of the normal `M-x' command history.

Yes. I think they should be in M-x command history. Not putting them
there is merely a misunderstanding of what semantics to use.