Re: Emacs Survey: Toolbars

[Christopher Dimech]

> Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2020 at 8:06 PM
> From: "Stephen Leake" <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org>
> To: "Clément Pit-Claudel" <cpitclaudel@gmail.com>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Emacs Survey: Toolbars
>
> Clément Pit-Claudel <cpitclaudel@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > On 12/15/20 12:30 AM, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> >> Of 7.3K respondents, 5K disable toolbars, which is more than two
> >> thirds.  So perhaps toolbars should default to off?  I know toolbars
> >> were all the rage in the 90s, but that's apparently not the case now.
> >> 
> >> Opinions?
> >
> > 2¢: keep them, though with prettier icons. It's trivial to disable
> > them, but it's not trivial to discover that they exist if they are
> > disabled by default.
> 
> +1
>  
> > (FWIW, this is a general philosophy: I think Emacs should ship with a
> > lot more stuff enabled by default, maybe with a spartan-mode to revert
> > to the current defaults.)
> 
> That works for me as well.
> 
> Lots of eye candy by default to seduce new users, followed by easy ways
> to configure the UI for higher productivity (which is why I turn off the
> toolbar; keystrokes are more efficient than mouse movements, and this
> gives more screen area for text).

Spot on.  We can then just use emacs modes to switch.  New users will not need 
to do anything,
whilst experienced users can change modes.  The problem that most computer 
users do not use
Gnu is because most computers don't come with a Gnu System Pre-Installed.

Do people ordinarily change much on their phones, car, etc... No.  What we 
offer is that    
if you want change and have the skills (or can get someone with the appropriate 
skills)
you are in a position to do so.  But do not give new users more problems by 
demanding they
use the manual and learn elisp to customise the operation of emacs.  Rather, 
the Emacs Mantra should
be:

------- Emacs Mantra -------
Those with skills have the possibility to adapt emacs to their needs, once they 
read the manual
and learn elisp programming.   

 
> -- 
> -- Stephe
> 
>