From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [drew.adams@oracle.com: RE: cannot find :enable in Elisp manualindex] Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 22:12:12 +0300 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1180465990 13212 80.91.229.12 (29 May 2007 19:13:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 19:13:10 +0000 (UTC) Cc: rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Drew Adams" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue May 29 21:13:09 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Ht781-00014Z-2h for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 29 May 2007 21:13:09 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Ht780-0006hV-At for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 29 May 2007 15:13:08 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Ht77U-0006K1-2u for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 May 2007 15:12:36 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Ht77S-0006Hx-GZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 May 2007 15:12:35 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Ht77S-0006Hh-AZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 May 2007 15:12:34 -0400 Original-Received: from romy.inter.net.il ([213.8.233.24]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Ht77P-00010f-7P; Tue, 29 May 2007 15:12:31 -0400 Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 (IGLD-84-228-244-17.inter.net.il [84.228.244.17]) by romy.inter.net.il (MOS 3.7.3-GA) with ESMTP id HYF23024 (AUTH halo1); Tue, 29 May 2007 22:12:12 +0300 (IDT) In-reply-to: X-detected-kernel: FreeBSD 4.7-5.2 (or MacOS X 10.2-10.4) (2) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:71958 Archived-At: > From: "Drew Adams" > Cc: > Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 21:01:52 -0700 > > That's really too bad, if it's the case. Keywords are important things to > put in an index (not to mention the fact that some languages to be > documented might use colons in special ways). If this is really not > feasible, then users are reduced to using search in Info to find a keyword > such as :type, :display, or :enable - pretty primitive Actually, I don't think it's so bad as you make it sound -- in the case of Emacs Lisp (as opposed to, for example, C++), because I really doubt that many people would use `:foo' instead of `foo' to look for the keywords. After all, the colon is similar to the quote ' in Emacs Lisp, and you aren't going to lobby for indexing 'keymap or 'wrong-number-of-arguments, would you? > (but still far better > than visiting the many "type", "display", "enable" etc. index entries). Please suggest how to qualify the index entries for the keywords that use such common words, so that they would clearly stand out in the list popped by TAB-completion. > Is there no way to escape a colon somehow, so that Info does not interpret > it? Sadly, no. > I haven't used TeX/LaTeX/Texinfo for 20 years, but my memory of LaTeX and > Tex, at least, is of something very powerful and flexible. TeX and LaTeX are powerful, but Texinfo is implemented by a very simple one-pass processor and a bunch of TeX macros, so it doesn't have a power that is anywhere near that. > Suggestion: If a user enters a colon at the `Info-index' prompt, print a > message saying 1) that the colon is being ignored, and 2) you can, as an > alternative, use search (`s' or `C-s') to search the manual for a term that > contains a colon. I think index search is so much more powerful that `s', even with the colon problem, that it's not a good idea to suggest `s'.