From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tom Tromey Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: My emacs was upgraded and I am a novice again Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2007 10:14:04 -0600 Message-ID: References: <46F2BA57.3060604@gmail.com> <711a73df0709212204r65af300cr37aab355f244176e@mail.gmail.com> Reply-To: tromey@redhat.com NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1190565484 4639 80.91.229.12 (23 Sep 2007 16:38:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2007 16:38:04 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Sep 23 18:37:59 2007 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 1IZUSz-0004fB-8y for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 23 Sep 2007 18:37:57 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IZUSw-00084M-MK for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:37:54 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IZUSg-00081t-7z for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:37:38 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IZUSe-00080m-Vs for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:37:38 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IZUSe-00080h-NQ for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:37:36 -0400 Original-Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.229.2] helo=ciao.gmane.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IZUSe-0007sw-Ai for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:37:36 -0400 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1IZUSQ-0007zC-VC for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Sep 2007 16:37:22 +0000 Original-Received: from 207.189.193.185 ([207.189.193.185]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 23 Sep 2007 16:37:22 +0000 Original-Received: from tromey by 207.189.193.185 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 23 Sep 2007 16:37:22 +0000 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 30 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.189.193.185 X-Attribution: Tom User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.990 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:NkJv5wFfE9UlTrA5TYNWrzfwJ5A= X-Detected-Kernel: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) 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:47772 Archived-At: >>>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii writes: Tom> On the minus side, discoverability remains a problem. Sometimes I Tom> wish I'd found those features years earlier. >> Ideas for an 'index' please? What form? Its the match of 'idea/usage' >> vs package name/variable/mode. Generally once you have the key words, >> emacs is sufficiently helpful? Eli> Instead of inventing new machinery, how about enhancing the existing Eli> one? "C-h P" is supposed to use the index you seem to think about. FWIW I think Emacs has excellent documentation. The fundamental discoverability problem with Emacs isn't that the documentation is missing -- it never is. The problem is, if you want to find something by keyword, first you must guess the keyword that the original author used. I don't know a good way to solve this problem. Usually if I'm motivated to look for something I end up doing many searches -- apropos, multiple keyword searches through various info documents, the Emacs Wiki, and Google. Even then I sometimes won't find something. This is hard enough that my need has to be pretty severe -- or have triggered my curiosity -- to bother. Otherwise it is usually simpler to muddling through with whatever (usually less efficient) approach I've been using. Tom