Re: A proposal for a friendlier Emacs

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   Dear all,

   following the recent discussions about a startup wizard and modern-mode 
   I try to provide a suggestion.

I think a startup wizard balances everything, new users with
experience other editors can easily pick what they prefer in this
configuration wizard thing.  This hasn't the negative notion of
"modern", "newbie", etc.

   What about having a startup screen, opening only if no .emacs or other 
   user configuration file is found just saying (the text is just an example):

It shouldn't be super intrusive if there is no .emacs, since it is
quite common to fire up Emacs without a .emacs.

   Welcome!
   This is the first time you run Emacs, please choose how to proceed:

   [] Go Vanilla!
      (standard defaults, no customizations)

   [] Start Configuration Wizard
      (set-up your .emacs configuration file interactively)

   [] Try Emacs in enhanced-mode
      (run with a predefined configuration showing emacs potential)

   After this screen, the normal Emacs splash screen could me presented.

   This mimics what many GNU/Linux distros already do, allowing minimal 
   installation, full-featured installation or Live (no-installation.

   The idea is that the option number 3 also enables a first-level menu 
   item allowing to select among:

Any specific reason why not have those in one of the menu bars by
default instead?  this would keep the "splash" slightly simpler.

   How does it sounds?

I think this is the most sensible proposal.