Re: Emacs Survey: Toolbars

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2020 11:58:35 +0100
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> writes:
> 
> >> I mean, look at the toolbar that happens when you "emacs -Q": You get an
> >> Emacs with a scratch buffer...  with a "Save" icon.  In a buffer that
> >> can't be saved.  That's how much attention we've spent on toolbars in
> >> two decades.
> >
> > Well, it actually can be saved, as soon as you type something (C-x C-s
> > works), and it's one of the real usage patterns. The button doesn't
> > indicate that, though.
> 
> Yeah, the save button stays grayed out and you can't click it, which I
> take to be an indication that this toolbar hasn't gotten a lot of love.

??? I'd say it's the other way around: they are insensitive _because_
someone thought about avoiding to trip the user.

> I just had a peek at the toolbar in *Help* -- it includes things like
> "Save" and "Undo".  No wonder most people disable the thing.

I don't understand what you'd like to have instead.  Would you like
Emacs to instead constantly add and remove tool-bar buttons as they
become available/not available?  I think this would be much more
annoying, and will cause even more people to disable the tool bar.

Making a tool bar insensitive is a standard UI way of telling users:
don't click on this, it will do nothing useful at this time.