Re: Emacs as word processor

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 14:01:22 -0500
> From: John Yates <address@hidden>
> Cc: Davis Herring <address@hidden>, address@hidden, 
>       Emacs developers <address@hidden>
> 
> How do you see a user setting up a list structure indented
> w.r.t. its surrounding context.  How would that user proceed to
> change the indentation?

With the command to change the indentation, of course, what else?

> Change for a bullet list to numbered?

With a command to change a bulleted list to a numbered one.

> What if there are multiple such lists through the document and the
> user would like to keep their appearance consistent?

With a command to change all such lists, perhaps giving the user an
opportunity to interactively confirm each one of them.

I probably don't even begin to understand what problems you have in
mind, because what I described above I do every day in Office.  And
one of the ugliest things Office sometimes does is make changes in
entirely unrelated parts of the document, changes I didn't asked for
and didn't authorize.  More often than not, I don't even know about
those changes until much later, when simply undoing them is a painful
option, since it would require undoing many other changes I did in the
meantime.

Emacs has features that make repetitive command execution very simple.
So we don't need to patronize our users and pretend we know better
what she has in mind, we could let the user repeat the command if she
wants, or offer interactive repetition, similar to M-%.  Then this
whole nightmare of elaborate styles that change things behind your
back at the most unexpected moment, like when you paste from another
document, could just go away, never to be seen again.