Re: Info tutorial is out of date

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 22:54:47 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Luc Teirlinck <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden, address@hidden
> 
> [this thread] seems to be obviously about the Info manual, not about
> the Emacs manual.

Yes.

> The Info manual tries to teach the user how to use the Info system,
> not how to use Emacs.

Correct.

> Unless there has been a policy change, Info is meant to replace the
> man pages in the GNU system.  That is, people would do `info find'
> instead of `man find' from a command line.  This brings up the
> standalone Info reader and should be usable by GNU users who use,
> say, vim as their editor and do not even know how to use Emacs.

Right.  (Except that one could set up their system so that "info FOO"
shows the related document in Emacs, not in the stand-alone reader.
But the default is certainly as you describe.)

> `h' brings up the Info manual not just in Emacs Info, but also in the
> standalone Info reader.

Yes.

> Of course, it must tell people how to use the standalone Info reader

Only the bare basics, because the more advanced features of the
stand-alone Info reader are documented in a separate manual, which
describes the stand-alone reader, and it alone.

> Of course, Emacs users must also be able to learn how to use Emacs
> Info.  Emacs Info is too close to the standalone Info to justify two
> separate manuals, especially since many people may want to learn how
> to use both readers and we should not force them to read two manuals
> most of whose contents just duplicate each other.

100% agreement.

> The Info reader has no menu bar and no Emacs style header line.
> Scroll bars and mice do not seem to work with it.

The current Info manual tries (sometimes very hard) to strike the
right balance between the handy GUI features available in Emacs and
the total lack thereof in the stand-alone reader.  It is quite
possible that the manual can be improved, but I'd rather see a
concrete proposal (in the form of patches or even a total rewrite)
than hear more of the endless discussions in this thread about the
relative merits and demerits of using the mouse and the tool bar.

Would someone who thinks they know how to make the Info manual less
``out of date'' please submit their proposed changes, so we could make
this discussion more practical?

TIA