Re: Making Emacs more newbie friendly

[Pascal Bourguignon]

PT <mailshield.gg@mailnull.com> writes:

> I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with this idea, but I think it
> really would help if emacs had a newbie-mode which made it easier for
> newbies to get acquainted with it.

C-h t 



> I don't even recommend emacs anymore when someone asks me for a good
> editor, because they always complain about emacs being too foreign,
> non-standard, etc.
> 
> This newbie mode would be a simple command which when activated would
> change default emacs settings, keybindings to as similar to a more
> usual  editor as possible.

M-x viper RET

 
> This would include for example keybindings which are familiar for new
> users:
> 
>       F1 for help, F2 for save file, F3 for load file, etc.

Where did you find these keybindings?  I've never seen them!  You call
them Familiar???
 

> Menus should be activated with Alt+<key>, e.g. Alt-F for File menu. I
> know  that Alt-F (Meta-F) is forward word, but I don't think a newbie
> would miss  it too much. pc-selection-mode should be the default, so
> that he can move  around with arrows + ctrl, shift, etc.
> 
> I know there could be a problem with these bindings if emacs is run in
> a  terminal, but newbies rarely do that, a graphical environment is
> more  common nowadays.
> 
> Useful general settings should be turned on by default. column
> numbers,  global font lock, etc.
> 
> So I'd like a single command which I could put into a newbies .emacs file:
> 
>       (newbie-mode)
> 
> and this would set everything, so that a new user can perform any
> simple  editing operation using only the knowledge he brought from
> other  systems/editors. And when he sees that emacs is not the editor
> from hell  then he might be more interested to learn more about it.
> 
> Anyone thinks it's a good idea?

Better put:

alias newbie-emacs=nano # or pico

in your ~/.bashrc


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/

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