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Re: Proposal for an improved `help-for-help'
From: |
Stefan Kangas |
Subject: |
Re: Proposal for an improved `help-for-help' |
Date: |
Sat, 13 Mar 2021 10:26:59 -0600 |
Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:
> If the general direction here is okay, I will provide a full proposal,
> including thinking through the order.
Please find attached an updated proposal.
My overarching goal here has been to design this as an _overview_ of
_important_ and _non-obvious_ information.
This is a summary of the changes:
- Added sections.
- Drastically shortened descriptions of the command.
- Changed ordering to be roughly based on: order of importance, logical
grouping of related items, and the Emacs manual.
- Removed the indication about which commands will show a prompt.
[Rationale: I find that information overly pedantic, messy and fully
redundant; it will either be obvious from context or, at the very
least, when invoking a given help command.]
I'm not sure what is considered a large attachment these days, so I
posted a screenshot at some image host:
https://i.imgur.com/Cv67yUN.png
To facilitate the discussion, I have also pasted below the plain text of
the help buffer. The patch is attached below.
(Type SPC or DEL to scroll, or q to exit.)
Getting Help
m Help for current minor and major modes and their commands
b Show all key bindings
k Show help for key
c Show help for key briefly
w Show which key runs a given command
a Search for commands (see also M-x apropos)
d Search documentation of functions, variables, and other items
f Show help for function
o Show help for function or variable
v Show help for variable
Info Manuals
r Show Emacs manual
F Show Emacs manual section for command
K Show Emacs manual section for command bound to key
i Show all included manuals
R Show given manual
S Find symbol in Info manual for current programming language
Misc Help
p Search for packages matching topic
P Describe Emacs Lisp package
e Show recent messages
g Show information about the GNU project
l Show last 300 input keystrokes (lossage)
s Show current syntax table
. Show local help at point
t Start the Emacs tutorial
Help Files
C-a About Emacs
C-c Emacs copying permission (GNU General Public License)
C-d Debugging GNU Emacs
C-e External packages
C-f Emacs FAQ
C-m Order printed Emacs manuals
C-n News of recent Emacs changes
C-o Emacs ordering and distribution information
C-p Known Emacs problems
C-t Emacs TODO
C-w Information on absence of warranty for GNU Emacs
Language Help
C Describe coding system
I Describe input method
L Describe language environment
h Display the HELLO file illustrating various scripts
0001-Improved-help-for-help.patch
Description: Text Data
- Re: Proposal for an improved `help-for-help',
Stefan Kangas <=