Re: discoverability, better defaults and which-key in Emacs

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 08/02/2024 15:02, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2024 14:18:34 +0200
> > Cc: justin@burkett.cc, philipk@posteo.net, luangruo@yahoo.com,
> >   jb@jeremybryant.net, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> > From: Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev>
> >
> > On 08/02/2024 08:59, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > > But
> > > I added F1 to that text, which should help if someone did change
> > > help-char.
> >
> > Whether help-char is changed, or 'C-h' is rebound anyway, can all be
> > detected at runtime. <f1> can also have a different binding in the
> > current prefix map--then the new message would be doubly incorrect.
>
> How frequently do people rebind F1?  IME, never.

Sure, likewise with C-h. That's why the original patch was probably okay 
as-is.

> But I don't object to adding runtime detection of the help keys.

Good.

> > I'd rather we picked one (preferably correct) suggestion and printed that.
>
> Most people will never rebind C-h.  Those who do could rebind it to a
> character that cannot be used in this situation because it is already
> bound in various prefix maps.  Having two alternatives there increases
> the probability that one of them will work.

If we consider the situations where C-h or f1 is rebound, having 
misleading text in the message (with bindings that don't work) should 
concern us as well. Even if one of the suggestions is likely to work 
anyway (while the other doesn't).

> > For context: I customize echo-keystrokes to a very low value and
> > currently see this help message quite often.
>
> If the message annoys you, you can disable it.

Sure - this is not a deal-breaker. But the more features I disable the 
less problems I could find while dogfooding. Until now I've been running 
with it, and it seemed unobtrusive enough.

Runtime detection might even make it occasionally helpful in odd 
contexts where something shadows the binding.