bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Daniel Martín via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Severity: minor

Steps to reproduce the problem:

emacs -Q
Click on File, place the mouse over "Visit New File", but don't click it.

Expected results:

"Specify a new file's name, to edit the file", which is the value for
the :help keyword of that menu item, appears in the echo area, or
perhaps in a tooltip.

Actual results:

Nothing appears in the echo area.

If you run Emacs in a console, it works correctly (press F10 to open the
menu bar).

In GNU Emacs 29.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-apple-darwin20.6.0, NS appkit-2022.60 Version 11.6 (Build 20G165))
 of 2022-01-03 built on Daniels-MacBook-Pro.local
Repository revision: 5c63786cb9873ab2b61b5ad511c84df9cd56ce87
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'Apple', version 10.3.2022
System Description:  macOS 11.6

Configured features:
ACL DBUS GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS JPEG JSON LCMS2 LIBXML2 MODULES NOTIFY
KQUEUE NS PDUMPER PNG RSVG SQLITE3 THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS WEBP
XIM ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_ES.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: ELisp/l

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

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bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Daniel Martín <mardani29@yahoo.es> writes:

> Steps to reproduce the problem:
>
> emacs -Q
> Click on File, place the mouse over "Visit New File", but don't click it.
>
> Expected results:
>
> "Specify a new file's name, to edit the file", which is the value for
> the :help keyword of that menu item, appears in the echo area, or
> perhaps in a tooltip.
>
> Actual results:
>
> Nothing appears in the echo area.

I'm unable to reproduce this problem on Debian -- is this a Macos
problem only?

On Macos, the menu is separated from the Emacs frame, and I'm guessing
it's impossible to do tooltips up there.  But I guess it could show the
tooltips in the echo area?  I.e., kinda emulate having tooltip-mode off
when doing the menus?

I've added Alan to the CCs; perhaps he has some comments.

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

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Alan Third]

On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 09:39:58AM +0100, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> Daniel Martín <mardani29@yahoo.es> writes:
> 
> > Steps to reproduce the problem:
> >
> > emacs -Q
> > Click on File, place the mouse over "Visit New File", but don't click it.
> >
> > Expected results:
> >
> > "Specify a new file's name, to edit the file", which is the value for
> > the :help keyword of that menu item, appears in the echo area, or
> > perhaps in a tooltip.
> >
> > Actual results:
> >
> > Nothing appears in the echo area.
> 
> I'm unable to reproduce this problem on Debian -- is this a Macos
> problem only?
> 
> On Macos, the menu is separated from the Emacs frame, and I'm guessing
> it's impossible to do tooltips up there.  But I guess it could show the
> tooltips in the echo area?  I.e., kinda emulate having tooltip-mode off
> when doing the menus?
> 
> I've added Alan to the CCs; perhaps he has some comments.

I was under the impression that the help text appears in a tooltip. We
had a recent bug report where the wrong text was sometimes appearing
in the tooltip, but that should be fixed now, at least on master.

I'd be surprised if there's no tooltip at all or the tooltip is empty,
it's a function provided by the toolkit.
-- 
Alan Third

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> writes:

> I was under the impression that the help text appears in a tooltip. We
> had a recent bug report where the wrong text was sometimes appearing
> in the tooltip, but that should be fixed now, at least on master.
>
> I'd be surprised if there's no tooltip at all or the tooltip is empty,
> it's a function provided by the toolkit.

Do you mean on Macos or Debian?  In Macos, I'm getting no tooltips when
using the menu.  (And I'd be surprised to be getting them, really,
because the Macos menus are separated from the Emacs frame.)

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

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Alan Third]

On 20 January 2022 10:16:01 GMT, Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> wrote:
>Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> writes:
>
>> I was under the impression that the help text appears in a tooltip. We
>> had a recent bug report where the wrong text was sometimes appearing
>> in the tooltip, but that should be fixed now, at least on master.
>>
>> I'd be surprised if there's no tooltip at all or the tooltip is empty,
>> it's a function provided by the toolkit.
>
>Do you mean on Macos or Debian?  In Macos, I'm getting no tooltips when
>using the menu.  (And I'd be surprised to be getting them, really,
>because the Macos menus are separated from the Emacs frame.)

Oh, sorry, I totally misread this and thought it was about the toolbar.

You're right, I don't expect tooltips to appear for menu items and I'm not sure whether it's even possible to update the Emacs frame while the menus are open.

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> writes:

> You're right, I don't expect tooltips to appear for menu items and I'm
> not sure whether it's even possible to update the Emacs frame while
> the menus are open.

Right.  Perhaps there should be a setting to emulate the action of
tooltip-mode off when using the menus only?  In other words, an option
to display the menu bar help texts in the echo area.

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

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Po Lu via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> writes:

> Oh, sorry, I totally misread this and thought it was about the
> toolbar.

If you'd like, I'll take a stab at implementing the display of menu bar
help text in the echo area on NS later today, or tomorrow.

Thanks.

> You're right, I don't expect tooltips to appear for menu items and I'm
> not sure whether it's even possible to update the Emacs frame while
> the menus are open.

I think it is.  The echo area redisplays normally, to the best of my
knowledge.

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Alan Third]

On Thu, Jan 20, 2022 at 07:41:57PM +0800, Po Lu wrote:
> Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> writes:
> 
> > Oh, sorry, I totally misread this and thought it was about the
> > toolbar.
> 
> If you'd like, I'll take a stab at implementing the display of menu bar
> help text in the echo area on NS later today, or tomorrow.

Feel free.

> > You're right, I don't expect tooltips to appear for menu items and I'm
> > not sure whether it's even possible to update the Emacs frame while
> > the menus are open.
> 
> I think it is.  The echo area redisplays normally, to the best of my
> knowledge.

It certainly used to be the case that, at least on macOS, opening a
menu would freeze Emacs completely, as the menu code would go into its
own event loop. Perhaps that's no longer the case.
-- 
Alan Third

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Po Lu via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> writes:

> It certainly used to be the case that, at least on macOS, opening a
> menu would freeze Emacs completely, as the menu code would go into its
> own event loop. Perhaps that's no longer the case.

Hmm?  Shouldn't that kind of thing only apply to regular menus (as on X
with a tookit and GTK), and not the menu bar?

Thanks.

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Alan Third]

On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 07:42:52PM +0800, Po Lu wrote:
> Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> writes:
> 
> > It certainly used to be the case that, at least on macOS, opening a
> > menu would freeze Emacs completely, as the menu code would go into its
> > own event loop. Perhaps that's no longer the case.
> 
> Hmm?  Shouldn't that kind of thing only apply to regular menus (as on X
> with a tookit and GTK), and not the menu bar?

What's the "menu bar" if not the toolkit menus?
-- 
Alan Third

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Po Lu via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> writes:

>> Hmm?  Shouldn't that kind of thing only apply to regular menus (as on X
>> with a tookit and GTK), and not the menu bar?

> What's the "menu bar" if not the toolkit menus?

On every other toolkit (and at least GNUstep, which I just verified),
the menu bar doesn't interfere with the usual event loop.  Though
unfortunately GNUstep doesn't implement willHighlightItem, so I can only
implement help text for macOS.

The only time a nested event loop is run is when a menu is created with
`x-popup-menu', and that's to make it easy to return a value from that
function.  That's also what I was referring to by "regular menus".

Thanks.

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Po Lu via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> writes:

>> What's the "menu bar" if not the toolkit menus?

> On every other toolkit (and at least GNUstep, which I just verified),
> the menu bar doesn't interfere with the usual event loop.  Though
> unfortunately GNUstep doesn't implement willHighlightItem, so I can only
> implement help text for macOS.

Unfortunately, it seems that's not possible either: macOS itself runs a
nested event loop inside HIToolBoxTrackMenuCommon whenever the menu bar
is opened, which seems to involve Carbon.  I don't know anything about
Carbon, so someone else will have to figure out how to exit such an
event loop.

Otherwise, the code works fine, so I installed it for GNUstep (where
menu tracking is done in the NS event loop) in the hopes that they will
implement `willHighlightItem' at some point in the future.

Thanks.

bug#52994: 29.0.50; Help descriptions from menu bar items don't appear in the echo area

[Daniel Martín via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> writes:

> On 20 January 2022 10:16:01 GMT, Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> wrote:
>>Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> writes:
>>
>>> I was under the impression that the help text appears in a tooltip. We
>>> had a recent bug report where the wrong text was sometimes appearing
>>> in the tooltip, but that should be fixed now, at least on master.
>>>
>>> I'd be surprised if there's no tooltip at all or the tooltip is empty,
>>> it's a function provided by the toolkit.
>>
>>Do you mean on Macos or Debian?  In Macos, I'm getting no tooltips when
>>using the menu.  (And I'd be surprised to be getting them, really,
>>because the Macos menus are separated from the Emacs frame.)
>
> Oh, sorry, I totally misread this and thought it was about the toolbar.
>
> You're right, I don't expect tooltips to appear for menu items and I'm not sure whether it's even possible to update the Emacs frame while the menus are open.

The "Mac port" is able to show the help description in the echo area
when you point on an item in the menu bar.  It'd be interesting to see
how it does it and if we could implement the same approach.