Proposal: A Get Started introduction to emacs [was: An anonymous IRC user's opinion]

[Moakt Temporary Email]

Hi Eli, Hi everyone,


> > The implementation is mainly about 2 parts:
> > 
> > 1. part1: "Getting started" (or introduction to emacs).
>
> This is basically an alternative to TUTORIAL.  It describes the Emacs
> basics in a different order than the tutorial, and I'm not sure which
> one is better.  The advantage of this method is that it's shorter and
> introduces the basic concepts right away; the disadvantage is that the
> description is necessarily much more abstract, and almost nothing in
> it requires the reader to _do_ anything, which IME tends to bore and
> lose the reader's attention.


I agree on the advantages which are in the main purpose of such a quick 
introduction (in contrast with a tutorial).

I don’t really agree on the disadvantages, because the introduction is better 
be abstract (if we agree on the “abstract” term), and user attention is kept 
in, because he is clicking on links to see the visual items and he is also 
executing some commands (opening windows, closing them, opening files, closing 
them, opening documentations, closing them, …).

I think the keybindings tends to bore and lose the user attention because they 
are numerous, repetitive task, needs lot of memorization, and may also 
overwhelm and discourage user, he might also thinks that he needs to use 
keybindings to start using emacs which is not true.

User also tends to be bored when reading any long reading material, specially 
if he does not have any global visibility before-hand, like a table of contents 
for example.

And even if he decided to scroll all the way down to have a quick idea before 
start reading the actual tutorial, he will see the following titles: “SUMMARY”, 
“BASIC CURSOR CONTROL”, “IF EMACS STOPS RESPONDING”, “ DISABLED COMMANDS”, 
“WINDOWS”, “INSERTING AND DELETING”, “ UNDO”, “ FILES”, “ BUFFER”, “EXTENDING 
THE COMMAND SET”, “AUTO SAVE”, “ECHO AREA”, “MODE LINE”, “SEARCHING”, “MULTIPLE 
WINDOWS”, “MULTIPLE FRAMES”,”RECURSIVE EDITING LEVELS”, which IMO tends to make 
user thinks that emacs is very complicated to understand and use, and when he 
starts reading, he will get a second confirmation on his first thoughts.

So it may be a good idea to do a quick, easy and more entertaining introduction 
for some of these terms (and only terms) user needs to know to start using 
emacs.

The tutorial is also more for users who want to use keybindings, which are not 
really needed to start using emacs (only copy/paste and undo/redo which are 
even reachable from the toolbar, and also C-g which I added to the 
introduction).

Users who wants to use keybindings, can still read the tutorial just after the 
“getting started” introduction. I added a link to it at the end of the 
introduction. I also added there links for users to purchase and read the 
manual.

When the user first open emacs (*GNU Emacs* buffer), he does not really know 
what to do next. Should he start reading the manual directly ? I don’t think 
so, very discouraging, so he will mostly never engage by purchasing the manual 
neither. User needs first to feel comfortable, and that he can do something 
useful with emacs, before doing that. Reading the tutorial will not help with 
this. Clicking on the other links (Open a file, open home directory, customize 
startup) will also not help with this at all.

User better be guided step by step, and keeping his attention and interest in 
emacs, until he is comfortable enough with emacs and ready to engage in a more 
complicated and time consuming steps, like reading the tutorial, reading the 
manual, etc.

It may seem impossible for advanced emacs users to use the menu bar or toolbar 
to issue commands (not using keybindings), but this is totally fine for a new 
user, that is why these (menu bar and toolbar) are here in the first place.

After a new user starts to use emacs for a while, he will say: “Ok, I like 
emacs, I will stick with it, but I need to issue commands in a quicker way”, 
then he will search and be happy to discover keybindings in emacs (he will have 
most certainly already discovered them from the menu bar, toolbar’s tooltips, 
customization ui, tutorial, other emacs users, ...)

Many other things in the tutorial are also not really needed to start using 
emacs which reduce the reading time considerably.

Users will also not remember all the keybindings when they finish reading the 
tutorial (or tend to forget them quickly), all what they will remember is that 
emacs is very complicated to use, and will try to quickly find other 
alternatives first (user’s first impression is very important to stick to this 
or that).

Let just give user the ability to start using emacs as easy and quick as 
possible, leaving the (other features) pleasant discovery journey take place 
naturally.


> That's a tough ticket.  There's so much in the Emacs display that is
> or might be important that explaining it in a short text is hard, if
> not impossible.  For example, the description you posted doesn't
> mention the scroll bars, and the description of the mode line is only
> hinted upon; filling that with actual information will likely make it
> much longer.  I think we'd most welcome attempts to do what you are
> trying to do, but it isn't easy.


No need to describe everything in emacs, _only_ things needed to _start_ using 
emacs. I think the actual introduction is more or less complete.

I don’t know if the user need to know about the scroll bars to _start_ using 
emacs, I think they can be discovered _later_.

Filling the dots(…) will of course make the introduction longer, but these are 
mandatory for user to start using emacs, there is no way to avoid them, if you 
think that I added unneeded things, they can and should be removed.


I hope this part finds its way into emacs, as it is totally independent from 
the other parts. It only needs little bit of work to complete, mostly to fill 
the dots(...). I did not do that, for multiple reasons, one of them is that you 
know emacs better then me, etc.


If anyone landed here, and is wondering what this “Get Started” introduction to 
emacs is about and where to find it, you can check my previous message 
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2024-10/msg00245.html.


Thank you all for your time