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Can someone :help me?

ajh17.github.io

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Re: Can someone :help me?

#11

Post by dredmorbius »

leorocky wrote: post #10

> No other software product that I've ever come across or used has had a better documentation. Vim requires so much documentation just to be usable. There is no GUI to hint at how to do anything. No toolbars, no application menus, no context menus or buttons. Vim's documentation is probably somewhat responsible for its popularity. I've never not found something I needed in Vim's documentation.

Which also means no GUI to get in the way.

I'm not saying there isn't a time and a place for that, but after your 2nd or 3rd decade of using a tool, sometimes you just want to see the text you're working on.

Re: Can someone :help me?

#12

Post by tomjakubowski »

tikhonj wrote: post #2

If you're curious, Emacs does all this—and more—with various C-h commands. If you want to see a full list of these, start with C-h ? Here are my favorites: If you want to see a specific keybinding, like checking what C-w is bound to: C-h k C-w If you want to see the documentation for a function: C-h f function-name If you want to see details about your current mode: C-h m This is incredibly useful because it lists al…

One neat trick is that, unless it's been explicitly rebound, this will show you all keybindings beginning with 

     C-h
So if you want to see all keybindings in the current buffer starting with C-c !

    C-c ! C-h

Re: Can someone :help me?

#13

Post by rwl »

Watabou wrote: post #4
grdvnl wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better still, if you want to execute a command and if you approximately know what it could be called as, you get list of potential commands in an alternative buffer, by Alt-x, and then start typing part of the command. This I feel is great to explore commands as you need them, before binding new keys to those commands. Without getting into emacs vs vim war, the author would be impressed in a bigger way once the emacs…

I'm sure I would be. I actually like emacs very much, and used to use it in my uni days. These days though, I like the modal way of editing more. I think emacs' documentation does come close but I still think Vim's help is much more easy to use and to search for. For example, a new user coming to emacs can't search for help on C-x C-f by invoking C-h C-x C-f

> For example, a new user coming to emacs can't search for help on C-x C-f by invoking C-h C-x C-f

That's true. It's C-h k C-x C-f. :)

Re: Can someone :help me?

#14

Post by PhasmaFelis »

dredmorbius wrote: post #11
leorocky wrote: post #10

> No other software product that I've ever come across or used has had a better documentation. Vim requires so much documentation just to be usable. There is no GUI to hint at how to do anything. No toolbars, no application menus, no context menus or buttons. Vim's documentation is probably somewhat responsible for its popularity. I've never not found something I needed in Vim's documentation.

Which also means no GUI to get in the way. I'm not saying there isn't a time and a place for that, but after your 2nd or 3rd decade of using a tool, sometimes you just want to see the text you're working on.

You may have hit on my fundamental frustration with Unix command line. Every tool is designed around the basic assumption that the user has a couple of decades of experience and wants the tool to get out out of the way and let them work. That's great for veterans, but actively hostile to newbies.

You'd think there could be some sort of middle ground.

Re: Can someone :help me?

#17

Post by vsbuffalo »

I use vim (after years of being a happy emacs user — switched due to RSI), but I've never liked its help system. Compared to emacs, it's incredibly hard to navigate and it just doesn't have anything as powerful as C-h k (what does this key do?).

Re: Can someone :help me?

#18

Post by Watabou »

rwl wrote: post #13
Watabou wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure I would be. I actually like emacs very much, and used to use it in my uni days. These days though, I like the modal way of editing more. I think emacs' documentation does come close but I still think Vim's help is much more easy to use and to search for. For example, a new user coming to emacs can't search for help on C-x C-f by invoking C-h C-x C-f

> For example, a new user coming to emacs can't search for help on C-x C-f by invoking C-h C-x C-f That's true. It's C-h k C-x C-f. :)

Whoops, thanks. Sort of hard to type it though. :)

Re: Can someone :help me?

#19

Post by Watabou »

vsbuffalo wrote: post #17

I use vim (after years of being a happy emacs user — switched due to RSI), but I've never liked its help system. Compared to emacs, it's incredibly hard to navigate and it just doesn't have anything as powerful as C-h k (what does this key do?).

What do you feel that Vim's help in that area is lacking?

I think searching for a key binding is pretty straightforward with `:h {key}`. I like how it's short and simple they are most of the time too so you can read and get back to whatever you were doing.

Re: Can someone :help me?

#20

Post by Watabou »

okasaki wrote: post #16

Does no one check their page layout on anything but 4k resolution any more? Here's what the page looks like on one of my 1280x1024 screens: http://i.imgur.com/w6WXYF6.png Since the screen is physically on my left, it's very annoying to try to read the text.

Hmm, thanks for that, I'll see what I can do. I don't have a 4k monitor but I do have a retina MBP. I tested it on mobile and the retina MBP but I don't have access to a lower resolution computer (hehe).
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