Re: Broken "C-b remapped to ..." advice in tutorial.

[Kim F. Storm]

Chong Yidong <address@hidden> writes:

> "Kim F. Storm" <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> emacs -Q
>> (global-set-key "\C-b" 'ignore)
>> C-h C-t
>>
>>
>> It now contains this misplaced advice (with C-b in read):
>>
>>      C-x C-b   List buffers
>> ** The key C-b has been rebound, but you can use <left> instead [More 
>> information] **
>>
>>
>> (notice also that the info line is >80 chars long).
>
> I checked in a fix.
>

Which doesn't quite work ...

Try this:

emacs -Q
(global-set-key "\C-b" 'ignore)
(global-set-key "\C-f" 'ignore)
C-h t

It stops half-through with a "text is read-only" error .



> By the way, there are some pretty dubious features in the new
> tutorial.  I think we should revisit them before the release.
>
> 1. There's no call for a special tutorial--tab-map to tab between
>    warning messages.  Why bother?

Seems superfluous to me too.  The tutorial shouldn't bind any keys
to have non-standard behavior!

> 2. Displaying one line of warning message for each rebound key
>    sequence is really annoying.  We should just highlight them in a
>    different face and display the message in a tooltip, and/or when
>    the text is clicked on.  After all, there is already a big warning
>    message at the top of the tutorial page saying keys have been
>    rebound; no need to hammer it in.
>

Indeed.  It should only give each warning once ... and just have
a tool-tip on other occurrences.

> 3. The tutorial-position saving mechanism is very opaque.  When the
>    buffer is killed, the current position in the tutorial, without
>    prompting the user (it used to save into a directory ~/.emacstut,
>    but I moved this into .emacs.d to avoid homedir pollution).
>    However, this saving does not occur if the user does C-x C-c or C-x
>    C-s.  This feature is confusing enough that I'd propose removing it
>    entirely.

I was confused at first, but I don't know what is best.

In any case, if we only give the warning about rebound keys once, it
should (somehow) start counting at the resume point rather than from
the beginning of the buffer.  Hm, that's complicated too.  OTOH, this
is a minor issue, as most user running the tutorial haven't rebound
keys.

Another idea ... bind the keys to their original meaning in the
tutorial, but make them issue a warning (when used) in the message
area telling that they have another binding outside the tutorial.

-- 
Kim F. Storm <address@hidden> http://www.cua.dk