order of manuals in Info...

order of manuals in Info...

[Drew Adams]

1. What is the ordering scheme used in emacs -Q for the Info manuals?

If it's supposed to reflect general usefulness or popularity, then I would
expect to see things like Dired-X, Ediff, and Tramp higher up, and things like
Newsticker lower down. That's not a great way to organize the menu anyway (and
one person's useful is another's useless).

Simplest would be alphabetical order - easy to find most entries. But keep Info,
Emacs, Emacs FAQ, Emacs Lisp Intro, and Elisp at the top.

2. Why does the description of Emacs Lisp Intro appear on a separate line from
the menu item? (It is the same length as EasyPG Assistant, so it shouldn't be a
problem of item length.)

3. How about reducing the descriptions of these entries?

. VIPER from 3 lines to 1:
  VIPER    - VI emulation mode"

. SC, Autotype, Forms, and Widget descriptions from 2 lines to 1:
  SC       - Supercite: cite parts of messages
  Autotype - Automatically insert text you type often
  Forms    - Edit databases by filling in forms
  Widget   - UI toolkit used by Customize

The multiple-line descriptions can give a false impression of separating the
menu items into groups.
  

Re: order of manuals in Info...

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:43:56 -0800
> 
> 1. What is the ordering scheme used in emacs -Q for the Info manuals?

They are ordered by (loose) topics, with the "main" manuals first.

> If it's supposed to reflect general usefulness or popularity

It isn't.

> Simplest would be alphabetical order - easy to find most entries.

TAB-completion makes everything easy to find.

RE: order of manuals in Info...

[Drew Adams]

> > 1. What is the ordering scheme used in emacs -Q for the 
> >    Info manuals?
> 
> They are ordered by (loose) topics, with the "main" manuals first.

No problem with that.

But what are the "main" manuals, besides the five I mentioned:
Info, Emacs, Emacs FAQ, Emacs Lisp Intro, and Elisp?

> > If it's supposed to reflect general usefulness or popularity
> 
> It isn't.

Use the term "main-manualness" instead of "usefulness", if you prefer. 

The question was about the order of those manuals that follow the five main
manuals I mentioned. What's the rationale? Is it "mainness"? If so, do you
really think that, e.g., Newsticker is more of a "main" manual than Ediff?

Do you think the current order is the best one?
Is there room for improvement?

> > Simplest would be alphabetical order - easy to find most entries.
> 
> TAB-completion makes everything easy to find.

That's irrelevant to picking a helpful order.
That applies to any order at all.


And what about question #2: shortening the long lines?

Re: order of manuals in Info...

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Cc: <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:52:41 -0800
> 
> 
> > > 1. What is the ordering scheme used in emacs -Q for the 
> > >    Info manuals?
> > 
> > They are ordered by (loose) topics, with the "main" manuals first.
> 
> No problem with that.
> 
> But what are the "main" manuals, besides the five I mentioned:
> Info, Emacs, Emacs FAQ, Emacs Lisp Intro, and Elisp?

None.

> The question was about the order of those manuals that follow the five main
> manuals I mentioned. What's the rationale?

There are only 4 groups of manuals after these 5: Editing modes,
Network features, Misc features, and Lisp libraries.  Inside each
group, the manuals are ordered in alphabetic order.  Editing modes is
first for obvious (I hope) reasons; Networking is before Misc for
likewise obvious reasons ("misc" should always be last); and libraries
are mainly for Lisp programmers, so they are last.

> Do you think the current order is the best one?
> Is there room for improvement?

There's always room for improvement, but I think the current order is
fine, and I think there are much more important problems to work on
now to help Emacs 23 be released sooner rather than later.

> And what about question #2: shortening the long lines?

Why is this so important? shorter description lose information.  I
think the current descriptions strike a reasonably good balance.