Re: bug#36767: 26.1; request: add more quick keys to the *Help* buffer

[Arthur Miller]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com>
>> Cc: Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net>,  larsi@gnus.org,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2021 21:57:13 +0200
>> 
>> > Please, no unnecessary generalizations of this kind.  Or at least not
>> > to cater to this particular request.  I want a _help_ command, not
>> > just a prefix that runs any command in the other window.  because, for
>> > starters, what if the *Help* buffer is not currently on display at
>> > all?
>> 
>> Here is one updated without the unnecessary let statement.
>
> Thanks, but I'd prefer a prefix command, so that you wouldn't need to
> prompt for the key sequence, but expect the user to provide it
> already.  For example, "C-h M-h s" would show the definition of the
> function or variable.

I am sorry, but I don't really understand what you mean here. You would like to
be able to type: C-u C-h M-h s, intead of C-h M-h s? Or  you mean C-h M-h C-u s?

C-h M-h is needed to switch control to the help buffer from the current buffer,
then you are just typing commands as if the cursor was in the help buffer. I
don't know, I don't really understand what you mean there, and I am not sure I
would know how to implement that, so maybe someone else can help with that one?

The obivous alternative I see is to globally define help-mode commands, as
originally suggested and put them on global shortcuts or make help-mode-map
globally accessible, but I think in practice remotely executing commands is
better since the keyboard shortcuts involved are same but all interactive
commands defined in help-mode become automatically avialable without any extra
work. If prompt bothers you, we can pass empty string as prompt in cal to
'read-key-sequence'. I put a descriptive prompt just to make it more clear, but
it is just cosmetics.

Maybe there is other way; but I am not aware of it.

> Also, the *Help* window should stay displayed, so any additional
> buffers the command needs to pop (for example, to show the definition)
> should not replace the *Help* buffer, it should pop in another window,
> exactly like when I invoke the command from the *Help* buffer.

Yes, I noticed myself. Since the current buffer is no longer help buffer, Emacs
chooses a bit differently in which window to display source code/info
buffer. Easy hack is to make help window dedicated to help buffer, as in the
attched patch. I have put into the patch so it is done automatic; but maybe it
is better to let users decide on that one by modifying buffer-display-alist?

0001-Send-input-to-help-buffer-form-any-buffer.patch
Description: Text Data