Re: Fiddling with the menus (was: bug#4043: 23.1; thanks for emacs 23!)

[Lennart Borgman]

On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Eli Zaretskii<address@hidden> wrote:
>> Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 05:53:25 +0200
>> From: Lennart Borgman <address@hidden>
>> Cc: Xah Lee <address@hidden>, address@hidden
>>
>> The "Save options" is in my opinion confusing.
>
> I don't see how it can be.  Many other GUI programs have a similar
> feature, and I didn't find it confusing at all.

They do? It does not at all seem common to me, but maybe I have just
missed it. I just looked in Firefox and OpenOffice.org and I can't see
anything similar.


>> I think it would be better to ask for each option if it would be set
>> permanently or just temporarily.
>
> That'd be a major annoyance, I think.

Exactly why?

I think the current "Save Options" is hard to understand. For me it is
nothing I recognize from other program GUIs. How do you know which
options it will save? Is it only those visible in the menu at the
moment you call the function? Or does it include options further down
in the menus? (I don't know actually.) What happens if you call it
from the command line?

I suggest removing it or replacing it with customize-customze which is
more consistent. Or maybe a version of that just lists which variables
to save.


>> Maybe bury them under "Show/Hide - Advanced - Scroll-bar" etc?
>>
>>
>> >>     * The Time, Battery, are of little use. Their functionality are
>> >>     provided by the OS's tool bar. Again, for geeks who need it, it is
>> >>     easy to call the command by “M-x”.
>> >
>> > I'd tend to agree.  But I also do not remember why they were added, so
>> > maybe there's just something I'm missing.
>>
>> Bury it under advanced as above.
>>
>>
>> >>     * The Size Indication, which shows the file size in the mode-line,
>> >>     should be gone too because for those who needs this feature, they
>> >>     don't need a menu.
>>
>> Bury it under advanced.
>
> Please, let's not go the way of all the silly programs that put
> everything interesting under "Advanced"!

Are you misunderstanding what I suggested? I did not suggest a single
"Advanced". I suggested that as a subgroup/submenu.

I think that is a very good and common practice. It gives a good
structure while at the same time it does not burden those that does
not need to see the advanced options. Still they have an easy chance
to find out they are there.

In what way do you find this silly?


> In a good UI, each feature should be put under a group whose name
> gives a hint that the feature could be reasonably looked up in that
> group.  Having group names such as "Advanced" or "More options", that
> have no mnemonic value, is abusing the menus, which are supposed to
> make the job of finding a feature _easier_, not harder.

Please see above. I think you are misunderstanding.