Re: Initial splash screen

[Stephen Berman]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 13:43:01 +0200 David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:

> Stephen Berman <address@hidden> writes:
[...]
>> This may have been suggested before (I haven't searched the archives
>> for it), but since the issue has been raised again, what about this:
>> show the splash screen the first time the user invokes Emacs (even
>> with a file name) and ask whether to show it on the next invocation.
>
> This is a bad idea since the splash screen contains quite a bit of
> _useful_ information,

Indeed, but once the user has learned that information, she may not
wish to be reminded of it at each invocation; my proposal amounts to
letting users set inhibit-splash-screen to t, but in the immediate
context of being presented with the useful information they should
know, effectively making them decide that they know the information.

>                       and starting Emacs without a filename gives us a
> frame where nothing useful can be displayed yet.

Well, that's what being debated in the thread I forked off of; many
people do find an initial *scratch* buffer useful.

> So there is no point in not showing the splash screen indefinitely if
> we are called without file name.

If by `indefinitely' you mean upon every invocation, again, the point
is the same as the reason for having inhibit-splash-screen, whose
effect is not constrained to starting Emacs with a file name.

> But _with_ a file name, the situation is different, and we should
> cater for it differently.

I don't see such a difference: the information in the splash screen
should be learned even if a user always starts Emacs with a file name
(and once the information is learned, the splash screen need not
appear any more, even if you start Emacs without a file name).

Steve Berman