Re: Adding a "quick-help" menu

[Philip Kaludercic]

Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> writes:

> Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:
>
>> What kind of prefix keys are we talking about?  Could you give me a
>> recent example for where which-key was useful to you (or anyone else)?
>
> For me, it's all of them.  But how about `C-x r' or `C-x C-k'?

Hmm, those are good examples, but I honestly don't see the advantage
over C-h and the "issue" of a false-positive popup after something like
C-c (I know that I often hesitate on that prefix).

>> But none of this is necessary when you press C-h.  The only disadvantage
>> is that you would have to repeat the prefix, but I think that could be
>> changed.
>
> (BTW, if we are talking about messing up window layouts, `C-h' does too.
> Even more so than `which-key', IME.)

True, but the "messing up" is done in two different ways.  C-h pops up a
new buffer and might hide some other information, while which-key pushes
up from below which might narrow the buffer contents.  If the active
point is moved by this change in the window layout, this will change the
visible portion of the buffer even after the key chord completed.

I've tried this by having a single window with any buffer and moving the
point to the bottom of the window.  If I now provoke `which-key', my
scroll-settings (which I believe are the default ones) will have the
point moved to the centre of the window, which could hide some content
at the top of the window I was interested in.

>> I personally think this is an advantage (though I wouldn't put it the
>> way you did).  To me `which-key' -- the way it is configured by default
>> -- seems fragile and unreliable.  A help buffer is just-another-buffer
>> and doesn't appear to be an exception to the rest of how Emacs works.
>
> I don't see anything exceptional.  Emacs already shows the key in the
> echo area by default, it just doesn't give you all the useful help that
> `which-key' does.

But that is a single line, which is already the space allocated for the
echo area.  What I am taking issue with is the resizing of the echo area
(real or apparent), *especially* when it is done in reaction to a
non-action like waiting.