Re: unnecessary fringe-indicators defcustom creates trouble

[Luc Teirlinck]

Richard Stallman wrote:

   Because they are more complex.  This is simple.
   It is meant for less experienced users.

Quite the opposite, fringe-indicators is very complicated.  Right now,
if a menu bar user wants to get the effect of setting
indicate-empty-lines to t (by far the most likely thing he might want
to do), he has to find it hidden in the Indicators submenu of the
fringe submenu of the Show-Hide menu, where he will probably never
find it and if he finds it, he has to understand the meaning of the
cryptic "Empty lines only".  After applying the menu bar patch I
proposed, it would be _much easier_ for the menu bar user to find out
how to customize indicate-empty-lines: it would be directly under Show-Hide.

I doubt that less experienced users will be desperate to customize
indicate-fringe-boundaries, but one could easily add the current
boundary customization capability back to the menu bar using
indicate-fringe-boundaries instead of fringe-indicators.  Which
variable we use for the menu bar is an internal issue, invisible to
inexperienced menu bar users.  If indicate-fringe-boundaries is really
that important, I would put it directly under Show-Hide, where it is
easier to find.

In as far as Custom users are concerned, do `M-x customize-group fringe'.
(Unfortunately, just doing this currently overrides any values you may
have set for indicate-empty-lines or indicate-buffer-boundaries.)  Look
at the "Value Menu"'s for fringe-indicators and
indicate-fringe-boundaries.  Why should customizing fringe-indicators
be easier?  It is difficult to guess what the "empty lines" choice of
fringe-indicators means.  The current "Value Menu" of
indicate-buffer-boundaries could easily be replaced with the Value Menu
of fringe-indicators, minus "Empty Lines" and plus "Pick your own design".
If a user picks the latter, he knows that he will have to do some
designing and I believe that the interface he then gets is actually
relatively easy to understand.  (I personally like the current
indicate-fringe-boundaries Value Menu better, but that is a matter of
taste, obviously.)

By the way, the reason why "Pick your own design" is not the last
choice of the Value Menu is that "On left, no arrows" _had_ to be the
last choice, because `other' has to be the last choice and any value
for which indicate-fringe-boundaries has no other sense means
"On left, no arrows".

Sincerely,

Luc.