Re: locate-with-filter

[Luc Teirlinck]

Nick Roberts wrote:

   When looking at the value of any variable e.g auto-mode-alist all explicit
   links have been deliberately removed because some were inappropriate
   e.g those for `features'.

As I already said, allowing the user to follow such unplanned "links"
conveniently (although `C-h f' is not actually that inconvenient for
occasional use of the type you describe) is a different functionality
from deliberate links intended as guidance to the user.  With the
alternate change I proposed, you could still follow these links with
`C-c C-c' or, you could keep the old behavior by rebinding
`help-follow-symbol' to RET.  Unlike what I said in the last message
that actually arrived on emacs-devel, rebinding `help-follow-symbol'
to RET _would_ restore the old behavior _exactly_, even with the
"(unless (push-button pos)" removed.  I explained why in a follow up
message that may or may not still arrive.  (It is because the
`push-button' binding for RET shadows the `help-follow-symbol' binding
whenever that line would make a difference.  `push-button' does not
shadow `C-c C-c'.)

The code that implements author intended links goes through quite some
effort to avoid presenting the user with documentation that might be
(sometimes very) confusing.  The present `help-follow' does not and
thereby completely ruins these efforts.

Here is one example of the _many_ ways that the present help-follow
can confuse the user in ways that it no longer will after Richard's
change.  If you currently press RET on the unquoted word function or
on the word function in "the symbol `function'", you get told that
function is a variable with value `help-xref-interned' and if you do
the same for pos instead of function, you get told that pos is a
variable with _some_ concrete integer value.  These are the values
that `function' and `pos' are dynamically bound to while the present
help-follow is being called.  The code called by actual buttons
carefully tries to avoid this, as well as various other sources of
confusion.  At present, to no avail.  The present `help-follow'
overrides it.

The present `help-follow' is meant for experienced Elisp programmers
who will not get confused by stuff like this.

Sincerely,

Luc.