Re: simpler help texts, default key for delete-window

[Benno Schulenberg]

Karl Berry wrote:
> [About skipping to the previous hyperlink.]
>
> My thought was, how often does a reader think backwards?  My
> belief is, not very often.

You are probably right.  The usage I had in mind, though, was: 
Tab-Tab-Tab..., oops, too far, how do I go back?

> Same deal for search-backward.  However, I agree it shouldn't be
> in the initial list of basic commands as an M-x.  But instead of
> binding it, I'm tempted to just remove it.  Again, how often does
> a reader want to search backward?

Fair enough.  Removal is okay.

It would be nice, though, to have instead search-next and 
search-previous bound to a single key by default.  In my .infokey 
file I have the following:

.       search-next
,       search-previous

These keys were chosen because comma and period sit under the "<" 
and ">" signs on a US keyboard.  Those keys are already taken by 
first-node and last-node, so "," and "." seemed a good second 
choice.  Of course this steals the comma key from next-index-match, 
but I doubt that relatively new users will want to use that 
function -- I still don't understand what exactly it does.

In the description of the search command, I think the addition of 
"and select the node in which the next occurrence is found" is 
superfluous.

Before going to a next node, the user will probably want to read 
through the entire current node.  So in the help text the scrolling 
commands should be mentioned before the node-jumping commands.

In the group of scrolling commands, Home and End should be mentioned 
last, as they take the biggest steps.

The commands that move the cursor a single line are currently listed 
in the following way:

ESC ESC [ B  Scroll forward one line.
ESC ESC [ A  Scroll backward one line.

Instead of the longest available key binding, it should mention the 
shortest: Down and Up.  And "scroll" is not the right description 
for what these keys do.  The following seems better:

Down    Move down one line.
Up      Move up one line.

In the rest of the help text, the next-line and previous-line 
commands are mentioned multiple times:

C-n     (next-line)                     Move down to the next line
C-p     (prev-line)                     Move up to the previous line
ESC Up  (prev-line)                     Move up to the previous line
ESC Down        (next-line)             Move down to the next line
ESC ESC [ A     (prev-line)             Move up to the previous line
ESC ESC [ B     (next-line)             Move down to the next line
Up      (prev-line)                     Move up to the previous line
Down    (next-line)                     Move down to the next line
ESC [ A (prev-line)                     Move up to the previous line
ESC [ B (next-line)                     Move down to the next line

I don't see the point of this: it makes the list of commands seem 
much longer than it actually is.  For the user the shortest key 
binding will be enough.  In this case just Up, Down, C-n and C-p.  
If a single key or key combo is available, there is no need to 
mention two-key sequences, and if a two-key sequence is available, 
there's no need to mention three-key ones.

The keys for scrolling a screenful should mention either Space and 
Backspace, or PageDown and PageUp.  Listing the keys for 
scroll-forward-page-only and scroll-backward-page-only is not 
needed: it is easy enough to scroll back when scrolling beyond a 
node boundary.

So the group of scrolling command would look better something like 
this:

Down        Move down one line.
Up          Move up one line.
SPC         Scroll forward one screenful.
DEL         Scroll backward one screenful.
End         Go to the end of this node.
Home        Go to the beginning of this node.

>     Also, when scrolling down through the help text, it should
>     stop at the bottom, fully stop -- and not beep, say "No more
>     nodes within this document", and go back to the top.
>
> I agree, but this has to be postponed (unless someone else cares
> to send me a patch within a couple days).  Can you put it in the
> bug list?

You mean file a bug on Savannah?

> All other changes agreed and committed.

The row of stars under the title line is still there.  In case you 
want to keep it, it needs to be a bit shorter.

Benno