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Emacs Docs The modern documentation website Emacs deserves

emacsdocs.org

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Re: Emacs Docs The modern documentation website Emacs deserves

#11

Post by taeric »

anyfoo wrote: post #5
neilv wrote: post #3

Any Emacs user who hasn't tried the Info documentation mode, and learned a few keys for navigating in it, might want to try. It's ancient (Emacs had hypertext way before the Web existed), but, for some purposes, it can be much more efficient than anything in a Web browser.

This made me remember something I haven't thought about in a long time: info (i.e. TexInfo) is great, but back in the 90s, there was a push in the GNU world to move from man pages to info entirely. Annoyingly, during that time lots of GNU man pages would tell you to look at its info pages instead. Me, and apparently others, were not thrilled. While info is technically superior, the "one page" format of a man page, at…

This is hilarious in modern context. So much documentation is effectively "what stack overflow has" that worrying about "man versus info" feels like a distraction.

Re: Emacs Docs The modern documentation website Emacs deserves

#13

Post by aulin »

distantsounds wrote: post #6
casion wrote: post #2

I greatly appreciate efforts like these, however I don't understand the value here. From my perspective: - More difficult to search (single page manual is easy to ctrl-f, emacs built-in docs same) - Difficult to read, styling plugins don't work well. - MUCH more text on the screen at once. A single horizontal line is at least 2 separate contexts. - Menu animations :( - various styling errors (code blocks overlapping…

trying out common web tropes with emacs is the only way to keep it relevant and on the front page of hackernews

emacs is on the front page at least daily, sometimes more

Re: Emacs Docs The modern documentation website Emacs deserves

#16

Post by defanor »

Apparently I'm not the target audience, being rather happy with the Emacs info viewer and the texinfo-generated HTML, but I noticed that some sections aren't clickable, possibly requiring JS (but not mentioning it); apparently it's the ones with ">", but that is not visible when global CSS is used (disabling background images, among other things). Search doesn't work (at least without JS) either. Perhaps it should degrade more gracefully.

But generally looks like a potentially useful addition to other documentation output formats: they are supposed to be usable with different setups and under different conditions, and covering different preferences seems useful too. Even the Emacs web page [1] is in that "modern" style now, after all.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

Re: Emacs Docs The modern documentation website Emacs deserves

#17

Post by bsdubernerd »

tomjen3 wrote: post #9
neilv wrote: post #3

Any Emacs user who hasn't tried the Info documentation mode, and learned a few keys for navigating in it, might want to try. It's ancient (Emacs had hypertext way before the Web existed), but, for some purposes, it can be much more efficient than anything in a Web browser.

I always hated info pages because they were so dog slow (or felt that way) to navigate. So many clicks and often a page would have only a few paragraphs on it. Maybe they are a better experience locally, but I never bothered to find out. The patological fear that it appeared the info system had of ever producing a webpage with 200kb+ text on it, that I can search for and click links without delay essentially ruined t…

I love/hate info. On one side, info can be more than a manual page, and contain _usable_ references. I suppose you know about the "all in one" manpage bundles such as ffmpeg-all and zshall which are there just so you can search?

Yeah..

On the other side, "info cp" didn't bring up the _reference_ of cp for a frickin' loooong time. It was a usability nightmare for that reason, and that reason alone. Had it worked the way it's working now: bringing you to the command reference first, but allow to search the entire manual scope at once (and WORKING references!), I would have been SOLD from the first moment.

The fixed-width format is the last thing I wished would be removed. I disabled catpath and have full-width manpages, but I cannot do the same with info as the text is pre-formatted.

Re: Emacs Docs The modern documentation website Emacs deserves

#18

Post by marco_craveiro »

na85 wrote: post #7
distantsounds wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trying out common web tropes with emacs is the only way to keep it relevant and on the front page of hackernews

I use emacs daily, and I really like it. A major part of the problem is that Emacs development is completely captured by the, shall we say, esoteric personality of its original author. Emacs is a political project first and foremost—this much is clear. The focus is not on making the best possible text editor/programmable environment. In fact several proposed improvements have died on the drafting board because they w…

I think your comment is interesting, and I do think the FSF at times held back Emacs development when it thought to be against their political aims. Having said that:

a) I think its good that in this day and age where everything is market driven (for better or for worse), someone is willing to take a position purely on ethical grounds. If nothing else because we need a plurality of approaches in order to find the "right" one. Also, note that RMS is no longer involved in Emacs development, AFAIK, and hasn't been for a while. He may pop in the mailing lists frequently, but his "word" does not have to be implemented.

b) the very large Emacs community does not share the political vision in its entirety and thus is not constrained by it. As a long term Emacs user, I have never seen Emacs developing at the fast and furious pace it has today. And this is both in terms of the external code (MELPA et al.) as well as the core itself, for which we must thank the current maintainer.

In fact, I'd even go further: almost all of the historical problems I've had with Emacs have been addressed with the current work already released or in branches - e.g., LSP, DAP, native compilation, tree-sitter... I do not think Emacs' progress has been held by the political views; and even my concerns with copyright assignment as a factor that slows down development have been comprehensively proven wrong by the speed at which Emacs is developing. I noted a great step-change in Emacs velocity over the last 5 years, and if anything it seems to be accelerating.

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