Re: [LONG] Some thougths and a patch for the search menu-bar functions

[Richard Stallman]

Each additional level of menu makes a command harder to invoke.
It is a major practical nuisance.

The current menu scheme puts many of the search commands in the menu 2
levels down, and the rest at level 3.  By contrast, this scheme

     Edit
       -> Search and Replace
            -> Incremental Search
                 -> Forward 
                      -> I-Search Forward ...
                      -> I-Search Regexp Forward ...
                 -> Backwards 
                      -> I-Search Backwards ...
                      -> I-Search Regexp Backwards ...
            -> Non-Incremental Search
                 -> Forward 
                      -> Search Forward ...
                      -> Search Regexp Forward ...
                 -> Backwards 
                      -> Search Backwards ...
                      -> Search Regexp Backwards ...

puts the most important commands 4 levels down.
That is a big step for the worse.


By the way, I now remember why we made the nonincremental search
commands more prominent in the menus.  It is because this is the sort
of search command that beginners are accustomed to from other editors.
We figured that people doing a search with the mouse would prefer to
get something they are used to, and that people who want incremental
search would invoke it from the keyboard.