Re: A new user perspective about "Changes for emacs 28"

[Ergus]

On Mon, Sep 07, 2020 at 06:45:59PM +0200, Nicola Manca wrote:

Hi Nicola:

I totally agree with you in all your points because when I started my
experience was exactly the same. Actually I stayed because I didn't have
internet in my country and I couldn't install anything else.. and vim
has modes ;p

Just some technical quotes/comments:

> These are just the first examples that came up in my mind:

> - undo-tree-mode
Undo tree had some problems in the past. But if you want the basic
undo/redo behavior there is something already in vanilla (as usual a bit
hidden):

(global-set-key [remap undo] 'undo-only)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-M-_") 'undo-redo)

which I discovered after asking here and fighting with undo tree for
almost a year.

> - which-key-mode

Yes, yes!! sadly it is not even in elpa. But I know that for a new user
this is 90% of his time the first days. "Learn where is everything".

Probably this is the only feature I really miss in elpa or even in
vanilla because when it is more needed is when the user doesn't know how
to install a package yet.

> - ido-mode (everywhere)

We have had some "issues" with ido support and integration with the
modern completion infrastructure. I am working in the default completion
infrastructure and icomplete/fido to improve them a bit (keeping things
simple) and make "fido more ido" when possible.

> - helm-M-x
This overlap some functionalities of ido right? Any way Helm will not
come to vanilla due to copyright issues... But we can improve icomplete
and completions (as we are doing, but it worth nothing if the users
doesn't find the differences).

I think that in the best case (being realistic) ivy is closer than helm
to come to vanilla as it is already in elpa and Oleh has already
contributed before.

> I've not the technical skills to do this, maybe someone out there 
> can and want.

You still can contribute in many ways:

- Documentation
- Testing
- Trying and reporting issues in newer features. (ej: trying fido-mode
and reporting the issues and differences with ido you find)
- Reporting bugs
- Replying to new users in the "help" list.
- Contacting melpa developers to add their features to elpa or vanilla
if you think they worth.

Software is not only code... if we had a graphical designer here half of
the discussion about the themes will be solved faster.

> best wishes
> Nicola