Re: Subject: Call for testers for GNU Hyperbole 5.12, a large, useful Emacs package

[Robert Weiner]

On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 5:44 PM, Dmitry Gutov <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 06/19/2016 11:58 PM, Robert Weiner wrote:
>
>> People really like to talk abstractly here, which is fun, but doesn't
>> help move things forward too far when you could just as easily describe
>> exactly what you mean.
>
>
> And from my side, the demo wasn't abstract enough: it described some things
> at a lower level, like press this, push that, instead of giving a brief
> overview of that all this stuff is about, and why I would want to push
> buttons.

Fair enough.  The HY-ABOUT file available on {C-h h d a} tells you
what it is all about and should
be mentioned in the HY-README file.

> A button that computes a factorial is not particularly convincing,
> I could do that just as easily via an interactive function.

True.  You probably want {C-h h d t} which lets you browse all of the
implicit button types and action types.  That shows you a lot of built
in behavior but would overwhelm most people for whom the demo is
meant.  You are definitely not a typical user (that's a compliment).

>
>> Did you find the demo useful or not?  Did you
>> like that it seemed more of a tutorial or not?
>
>
> Somewhat, and no. It was overly long as a demo, it gave me a taste of
> understanding of what buttons mean in Hyperbole, but not why I would want to
> use them, as opposed to the regular tools (interactive functions and key
> bindings) that are already available in Emacs. Or maybe I was expecting too
> much.

That is good feedback.  We will use it as we update the demo
considering all of the new capabilities in Emacs since Hyperbole was
last published.

>
> Yes, buttons that link to an arbitrary files or directories, or that launch
> any command look neat, but it's not very obvious what kind of new and
> amazing workflows they allow, if any.

That's like asking what workflow Lisp can enable.  Hyperbole is a
toolkit, like Emacs, that you mold to your needs.  It has a lot of
built-in behavior but is not limited by this.

>
>> There is a 150 page manual with extensive
>> cross-references for more detail but a few more sections are yet to be
>> written.
>
>
> I hope you can forgive if I'm not in any hurry to spend time on that.

You either want depth or a taste.  I am pointing you to more resources for both.

>
>>     A demo is when you expend minimal effort and mostly observe the
>>     niceties of a program/package/website/etc, in a condensed form.
>>
>>
>> Hyperbole is highly interactive, so we want people to interact with it.
>
>
> "Here are lots of buttons, click on them" would be fine. Maybe ease on on
> the terminology. You can tell the user to press S-mouse-2 without
> introducing the term "Action Key", etc.

If you get into Hyperbole more, you will certainly understand why we
name that key and don't use a specific mouse button name much.

>
> And halfway through, the buttons stop, and the "demo" starts describing the
> normal Emacs features (maybe with some minor twists). Doesn't sound like
> demo material.

I'll look at that.

>
>> I don't know want ACME is.   But what would you be switching from?
>
>
> Switching from Emacs. Acme is/was a Plan 9 editor:

Why would you switch from Emacs to use Hyperbole?  They complement
each other.  And you can't be saying you were looking at switching
from Acme to Emacs with Hyperbole.

>
> http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/acme/
>
>> How
>> else can you interactively create buttons with elisp actions in Emacs?
>
>
> Never really felt the urge before.

In part because you couldn't maybe.  I guess people didn't create many
hyperbuttons before the web either but look at them now.
Yet, that is still a hard process.  With Hyperbole, it is easy.

>
>>     - "Depress the Action Key somewhere within this paragraph
>>     and while holding it down, depress the Assist Key." doesn't lead to
>>     the desired effect, or maybe I just understand the instructions.
>>
>>
>> I will check.  There was a problem with this but I believe it was fixed
>> in 5.12.  You need to be holding down shift-mouse2 and then press
>> shift-mouse3 or vice versa to see help for the first key pressed.
>
>
> That would be "press", not "depress", wouldn't it? Still doesn't work,
> though.

Send us your system specifics so we can possibly replicate the
problem.  With Hyperbole, you can do this with {C-h h m c}.

Bob