From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Xah Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: emacs mode line suggestions Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:09:13 -0800 (PST) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: <15962952-6180-41bd-abce-1b919aa55807@v13g2000pro.googlegroups.com> <39353809-6edf-4b7e-aae2-e0dd4d614c61@a26g2000prf.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1226962600 24779 80.91.229.12 (17 Nov 2008 22:56:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:56:40 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Nov 17 23:57:41 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1L2D2J-0006Bd-1y for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:57:39 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:59753 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1L2D1A-000756-JO for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:56:28 -0500 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!news.glorb.com!postnews.google.com!v16g2000prc.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 93 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.6.185.159 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1226959753 22564 127.0.0.1 (17 Nov 2008 22:09:13 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:09:13 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: v16g2000prc.googlegroups.com; posting-host=24.6.185.159; posting-account=bRPKjQoAAACxZsR8_VPXCX27T2YcsyMA User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10_4_11; en) AppleWebKit/525.26.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.2 Safari/525.26.12, gzip(gfe), gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:164546 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:53:35 -0500 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:59881 Archived-At: On Nov 17, 12:39 pm, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > From:Xah > > Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:17:44 -0800 (PST) > > > > > typically, a user has several user buffers open, and as far as i gu= ess > > > > many programers who use emacs extensively has like hundreds of buff= ers > > > > open. Cycling them one by one is not much useful. > > > > No one in their right mind will cycle buffers. This feature exists i= f > > > your buffer is one or two away. Anything more than that, you should > > > use the menu-bar's Buffers menu (or select the buffer by its name wit= h > > > C-x b). > > > So, when clicking on the buffer name, showing a menu is more useful > > than cycling buffer. > > As I already said, I disagree: if I need to switch to a buffer that is > just one buffer away in either direction, with the current behavior I > get that in one click. With your suggestion, clicking on the buffer > name would be the same as Buffers from the menu bar, and this > duplication of functionality is a waste of scarce resources, IMO. you mentioned that normally cycling buffer is only useful when there are few buffers. So, the click to cycle behavior on the mode line is of limited use. what i'm saynig in response, is that if now we make the clicking on the mode line behavior to show list of buffers, this would widen the usefulness. after all, there's already a menu and keyboard shortcut for Next/ Previous buffer. So, the current behavior of clicking on the mode line to switch to next/previous buffer, is also, a duplication of functionality as far as duplication of functionalities is concerned. > > > > switching between modes is not rarely used. I'd estimate it is used > > > > every other hour at least. > > > > Please provide some use-cases to back this up. FWIW, I almost never > > > switch the major mode in the same buffer, unless Emacs didn't switch > > > into the right one to begin with, and even then I only do that once i= n > > > a given buffer. > > > those who use *scratch*, or create new buffer, or create new file... > > he may need to switch to the righ lang mode. > > Usually, creating a new file with C-x C-f already switches on the > right mode. And even if Emacs somehow gets this wrong, it's a > one-time event for that buffer. creating a new file is just one example. Others are using *scratch* or creating a new buffer. As i have already stated clearly in my previous post, in general, when user creates a new buffer for scratch purposes, switching mode is needed. It is not just about C-x C-f. Furthere, C-x C-f gets you the right mode only when you use the right file name suffix. When a user creates a new buffer for scratch purposes, he does not need to name the file with the right suffix. If he does, that's for the purpose of making it into the right mode. And if so, it is necessary only if he doesn't already have a easy or proper way to get the buffer into the right mode. In other words, the file suffix induced mode switching is a side effect. Of course, one may argue that user might just do Alt+x =E2=80=B9mode name= =E2=80=BA. But remember the context is for those who are new to emacs, on intuitiveness, with regards to the behavior of clicking on mode line. In summary, i argued that clicking on the major mode section of the mode line's behavior is better if it just list available modes where user can switch. You argued no by saying that it's not often needed to switch mode. I argued it is needed, in several scenarios, summarized as when user needs a scratch buffer. Then you argued that find-file will get you the right mode with right suffix name. I argue now, that this disregards 2 other common methods of using a buffer for scratch purposes, namely, the *scratch* buffer and switch-to-buffer method, and furhter, find-file gets the right mode only when the user names the file with the proper suffix, and further, such is a side effect not a proper method, because for example, the suffix to mode correspondence is not always straightforward and known to vast majority of programers and especially when the language is not one of the top 10 popular ones. Xah =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/ =E2=98=84