Re: Emacs for new users

[Chong Yidong]

Deniz Dogan <address@hidden> writes:

> 2009/11/24 Chong Yidong <address@hidden>:
>> Lennart Borgman <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> What I meant was that they should not be allowed to leave the
>>> minibuffer and go to another window. This is similar to how many GUI
>>> programs work.
>>
>> This is a limitation of other programs.
>
> It is nevertheless possibly confusing to newcomers when they
> accidentally exit the minibuffer. I remember getting bit by that a lot
> myself when I was new to Emacs (which is not that long ago).

There are plenty of people that consider modal dialogs a usability
problem, and are trying to reduce their use in other applications.  (And
these are applications typically aren't anywhere nearly as text-centric
as Emacs, where it's a real benefit to be able to switch windows and
manipulate text without destroying your minibuffer contents.)  I think
the disadvantages of increased modality quite clearly outweigh any
advantage.