Re: The minibuffer vs. Dialog Boxes (Re: Making XEmacs be more up-to-date)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Brady" == Brady Montz <address@hidden> writes:

    Brady> For this particular example, a popup menu of common "what
    Brady> you might want to see after reading this help text" actions
    Brady> might be the best menu modification.

Algorithm?  Or are we going to have to rely on massive effort from
volunteers?  :-)

    Brady> I dislike relying on having things like only in a menu
    Brady> though, since it's not obvious to right-click when you want
    Brady> "more." A little "click here for more" button is more to my
    Brady> liking.

But more what?  Does that mean go from the docstring to Info page (and
should that be the User Guide or the Lispref?), or the mode's keymap
wallpaper, or the mode docstring, or hyperapropos, or Info index?  Or
(dare I say it?) help-on-help?

I think one problem is that most of the people working on (X)Emacs cut
their teeth on permuted indicies, man -k, apropos, whatis, etc
commands.  Possibly if `C-h a' were glossed "search for functions (and
variables) with similar names" instead of "apropos"?  (Would "Names
like ... (C-h a)" do it?)

    >> Is "C-h C-f" supposed to show the Info node for a command you
    >> type?  If so, the equivalent command works for me in Emacs with
    >> gnus.

    Brady> Doesn't work on my xemacs installation, so it's probably
    Brady> just an install issue.

Gnus is bundled with Emacs.  I wonder if Eli would get the same
results on an unbundled package.  I'm pretty sure that's why we don't
pick it up.

    Brady> Help shouldn't require help.

Have you ever tried to use Windows help?

I have _never_ used Windows for anything other than sanity-check
Cygwin builds of XEmacs and that wonderful doc2txt utility that MS
Office provides.  But I'm better at navigating Windows help than any
of the Windows users I know -- if they don't understand, they ask; if
they don't get a useful answer, they give up or look in the deadtree
manual.

I'm afraid that "help shouldn't require help" is just wishful thinking.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
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