Re: fancy splash screen

[David Kastrup]

"Drew Adams" <address@hidden> writes:

>     > "Emacs" in "About Emacs" is not redundant in any way. If you have
>     > multiple buffers, there is nothing that implies that one named only
>     > "About" has help about Emacs.
>
>     Most applications I know have exactly one "About" menu, and Emacs does
>     not seem to be different in that respect.
>
> It's not about the menu; it's about the buffer name. There are lots
> of buffers whose content is "about" something, and some Emacs
> libraries might use that term in buffer names, for various
> purposes. You might have buffers "*About Foo Bar*" and "*About
> Toto*".

But we don't have any such buffers.  This seems academical.

> The buffer about Emacs should be called "*About Emacs*" (possibly
> with "GNU"). A buffer name of just "*About*" does not clearly
> indicate what it is.

As I said: having a single "About" item is common for applications.
Since the menu entry is called "About Emacs", calling the buffer
"*About Emacs*" seems a suitable choice.  I don't find your arguments
for that name persuasive at all, but since I am fine with that choice,
it seems useless to haggle over just _why_.

> Similarly, I don't see it mentioned in the Emacs manual. Shouldn't
> it be mentioned along with the use of space as first character for
> internal buffers (e.g. in node Select Buffer)? Node Buffers is
> perhaps a good place to mention use of both `*' and initial space in
> buffer names. That node gives examples of `*' buffers, without ever
> pointing out that they are buffers that are not normally visiting
> files.

It is basically only a convention, but it might be worth mentioning
there or somewhere else.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum