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Re: Changes in the menu bar


From: Eli Zaretskii
Subject: Re: Changes in the menu bar
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 09:53:40 +0200 (IST)

On 25 Nov 2001, Sam Steingold wrote:

> >     I'm afraid "Apropos" won't ring a bell with many newbies, and we
> >     want them to use these features a lot.
> 
> I don't think of "Apropos" as a "newbie" feature.
> (as opposed to "Describe")

But the menu bar's most important goal is to give newbies an easy way
of using advanced Emacs features.  And "apropos" commands are one of
the more efficient means to find things in Emacs.  Veterans of the
user-level news groups, such as comp.emacs and gnu.emacs.help, usually
advise to put these commands to a good use.  So I think we do need to
think about newbies when working on these menu-bar items.

> >   - The item "Apropos symbol" should IMHO be renamed to something
> >     more clear.  ``Symbol'' is not something new users would grasp.
> 
> "symbol" is only one (out of 5) options, and by the time the user will
> get there, he will likely know the ropes.

"M-x apropos" is a feature one should use when one doesn't know if
they are looking for a variable, a command, a function, or something
else; in short, when one is desperate.  I wonder if we could come up
with a label (and a help text) which would tell that more explicitly.



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