RE: New start up splash screen annoyance...

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Drew Adams writes:

 > > So how about giving them a [X] in the divider?  This lack is a UI bug
 > > independent of the splash spiel.
 > 
 > I was almost going to suggest that, or something similar: Add an `X' button
 > to (all) mode lines at the far right,

That's pretty much what I'm suggesting.  An alternative would be a
grip that could be dragged until the smaller window disappeared, at
which point the modeline itself would go *poof*.

 > But I remembered that we already have `mouse-3' on the mode-line bound to
 > `mouse-delete-window'.

Surely you didn't type that with a straight face!  Jane Noob is going
to have the special meaning of button 3 on the modeline memorized?  I
don't think so.  It's this kind of thing that results in Dired having
4 ways to say "next line" with people suggesting adding another.

The point of a GUI is to provide ways to do common operations that are
convenient and easily visible on-screen, so you don't have to remember
them.

Emacsen have introduced some interesting, elegant, and subtle ways to
use the UI.  What they aren't is obvious or consistent with the GUI
gestures users are familiar with from the Mac or Windows.  Users (who
don't think of Emacs as the obvious way to interact with all their
applications) need to be reminded of them.

 > But keep this thread rolling...

No, I'm serious about this separate from the issue of the splash
screen.  If we want to encourage new users to learn to use (Emacs)
windows, it would be a big help if the GUI provided gestures to
operate on them in a mnemonic way.

After all, what is an Emacs frame but a tiled window manager?  We
should present it that way to the user.