Re: Proposal for an improved `help-for-help'

[Stefan Kangas]

Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:

> Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:
>
>> 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.
>
> There have been no further comments here within 4 weeks.
>
> I intend to finish this up and push this to master in the next couple of
> days.  Please send any further comments soon, or we will have to
> consider them after this lands on master.  Thanks in advance.

That was 2 weeks ago.  Based on the feedback I received at the time, I
have now pushed my final version of this patch to master.

There is of course still time for further tweaks before Emacs 28.
I invite anyone to report bugs in case they can see any opportunities
for improving this.  (Feel free to CC me if you do as I'm currently not
subscribed to the bug list.)

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion!