Re: "What's This?" in Describe submenu

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 19:08:01 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Luc Teirlinck <address@hidden>
> CC: address@hidden, address@hidden, address@hidden
> 
> First of all, as already pointed out by me and by Stefan, if a user
> familiar with "What's this" clicks on the minibuffer, he expects an
> explanation of what that area is used for, not the mouse-drag-region
> docstring.

See my reply to Stefan.  And please try some more clicks with
"What's This?" to see that what it does is not really answer the
question "What's This?", but more like "What's This For?".  This is
very close to what our describe-key does.

> <menu-bar> <help-menu> <describe> <describe-key> runs the command describe-key
>    which is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `help'.
> It is bound to C-h k, <f1> k, <help> k, <menu-bar> <help-menu> <describe> 
> <describe-key>, <menu-bar> <help-menu> <describe> <describe-key-1>.
> (describe-key key &optional untranslated up-event)
> 
> Display documentation of the function invoked by key.
> key should be a key sequence--when calling from a program,
> pass a string or a vector.
> If non-nil untranslated is a vector of the untranslated events.
> It can also be a number in which case the untranslated events from
> the last key hit are used.
> 
> 
> Now, that makes everything crystal clear.  Exactly the basic stuff
> every Emacs newbie needs to know.

Cynicism aside, what you say is a general complaint about our doc
strings, not specific to the menu item we are discussing.  In effect,
you are saying that "Describe Key" is useless for newbies.  While I
agree that we should make the documentation to use smaller words, that
has nothing to do with the issue at point: that describe-key comes
close to what "What's This?" does on Windows.