Re: describe-bindings: ^L, bad order, naming

[David Reitter]

On 11 Nov 2005, at 22:42, Miles Bader wrote:

> Emacs can accomodate beginners to a degree, but I often get the
> impression you want to _replace_ well-worn Emacs conventions with
> whatever dancing elephants you're used to from the mac, and that isn't
> something that's always desirable.

Sometimes I'd like to coerce Emacs into supporting operating-system  
specific standards. But I wouldn't propose to change the UI in a  
general way to accomodate that. What we are talking about - a  
horizontal line as a page divider - is nothing mac specific. You can  
see it in pretty much every GUI based application that deals with  
text, not just on the Mac.

> We want to _help_ new users, but
> that doesn't always mean simply copying other interfaces; often it
> means simply offering a bridge to make it easier for new users to
> understand Emacs conventions.

Your suggestion about ^L with a horizontal line next to it implements  
that nicely.

I have noticed that a lot of people here are actually open to  
reforms: conventions can be modernized, if there are good arguments  
for it and if one is considerate of people's long-learnt ways of  
interacting with the program. Because of this view, and because I  
think the naïve perspective of a relative newcomer can be helpful in  
such things, I make these suggestions. (I have been using computers  
since 1984, Atari, Windows, GNU/Linux, GNU/OS X - I'm biased towards  
graphical interfaces, yes, but not biased towards the Mac in  
particular, I would say).

Most people seemed to be quite happy with a nicer key bindings list,  
I believe.
Implementing this - for example your compromise below - is probably a  
matter of minutes for one of the experts. Is the topic isn't worth  
spending hours discussing?

> Displaying ^L characters as a horizontal line might be visually nicer
> (for everybody, not just beginners), but in normal text (source
> buffers etc), hiding the fact that it's simply a character which can
> be inserted or deleted etc. like any other, may actually be harmful to
> beginners.

I think the crucial distinction is whether the text is meant to be  
edited, or read. We're in Help View Mode here. I can see no harm in  
displaying horizontal lines to divide the groups.
By the way, the tutorial routines go a long way at inserting blank  
space to make the first page be a real, visual page. I'm not  
suggesting that this is what should be done here, but it shows that  
at some points, the current implementation is considerate towards a  
first-time reader.

- D