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Re: AW: [h-e-w] EmacsW32, gnuserv, pathes in .emacs


From: Eli Zaretskii
Subject: Re: AW: [h-e-w] EmacsW32, gnuserv, pathes in .emacs
Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 18:46:03 +0300

> Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 19:33:09 +0200
> From: <address@hidden>
> Cc: <address@hidden>
> 
> because i started the discussion i am feeling constrained to say some words 
> to the discussion with the background of an emacs beginner.

Christian, thanks for the detailed report.

> for example i wanted to move a paragraph from one point in the document to 
> the other. in ultraedit (or notepad or proton or ...) a quite simple task: 
> (text marking with the mouse C-x C-v). in emacs at the first look a little 
> bit more complicated or at least unfamiliar to me.

The menu bar was supposed to help you out: it has the standard Edit
menu, where you should have found "Cut", "Copy", and "paste" items.
Can you tell why you didn't find those or use them?

> i didn't found such an example in the emacs manual  and it took quite a time 
> to find one with google. next i wanted to delete all empty lines, search and 
> replace strings and so on, typical edit tasks 

Could you please recall how you looked in the manual?

> BUT if you are a emacs-newbie, at least for me, the manual is very confusing 
> maybe because its so powerfull, like emacs itself.

I'm well aware how the wealth of documentation can be confusing, if
you don't know the entry points.  That is why I think that newbies
should be pointed to the manual, but with some strategic hints about
how to use it efficiently.

Please also understand that it is to some extent a bootstrapping
problem: you need to be told about the documentation system using that
same system.  It's not easy to do that without getting you stuck due
to lack of prior knowledge.

> at the first time all i had needed would be a simple document with normal 
> tasks:
> 
> 1) installation and configuration (for me especially with windows)

The Windows installer is not part of the Emacs distribution, so this
part is up to Lennart.

The Emacs distribution describes installation on Windows in the
nt/INSTALL file.

> 2) simple emacs-commandos like described in the tutorial in the emacs help 
> menu

Do I understand correctly that the tutorial was good enough for this?

> 3) more extensivly examples for typical editing tasks like search and 
> replace, copy and paste, rectangle editing, ...and so on. only with examples 
> newbies can see the possibilities of emacs

These are in the manual.  I think if you knew about the `i' command,
you would have found it with ease.  If you can afford that, please
read their description in the manual (e.g., type "i search-and-replace RET"
and read there), and tell whether the description is good enough for a
newbie who reads it for the first time.

> 4) a few word about the .emacs file and customization

Please see whether the node "Init File" in the manual is good enough
for these needs.

> 5) a glossary with the special emacs terms

I already mentioned the Glossary.

> 6) and all that in a separat pdf-document

But searching in a monster-large PDF file will be very inefficient!
It is so much easier to use the on-line Info manual.

Thanks again for the feedback.




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