From: Joost Helberg <joost@snow.nl>
To: bzg@altern.org
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Org expert mode?
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:25:20 +0100 (CET) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20110310.222520.32509650.joost@snow.nl> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87vczre1eb.fsf@altern.org>
Bastien and others,
When I worked in Hoofddorp in the early 90's, I travelled 2.5 hours by
train every day. I reserved half of the train-time every single day
for a year checking out GNU Emacs stuff I didn't understand on my
notebook. This helped me a lot in going places (aka major modes, elisp
code and, later, customizations) I didn't dare visiting before.
The same is true for most of the *Customization* stuff. Seeing things
beyond your boundaries of understanding satisfies curiosity. Checking out
stuff you don't completely understand is part of the Emacs journey. A
journey which is a lot more exciting than any other virtual software
inspired journey I've encountered.
The creation of an `Expert mode' will make the exploration of new
features `by accident' or by ambitious curiosity less likely. I think
introducing an expert mode (is the plain and simple org-mode not
already quite for experts already?) a bad thing.
Then the semantics of `expert' come around. Expert in what field?
Organisation? Elisp? Time-clocking? Org-mode key bindings? There must
be over 5 different experts in using org-mode, which may be even
overlapping.
Personally I don't mind superfluous messages in GNU Emacs, if any.
They disappear fast enough and don't appear to slow down things;
though I might be wrong here of course.
Last, but not least, org-mode users are honest people, at least to
themselves they are, they must be! Many of them will have trouble
admitting they're an expert in org-mode; they won't tick the
box. They'll miss features they would otherwise try.
Org-mode is the best invention since sliced bread and if not, GNU
Emacs is, keep up the good work!
many regards,
Joost Helberg
>>>>> "Bastien" == Bastien <bzg@altern.org> writes:
> Subject: [O] Org expert mode?
> From: Bastien <bzg@altern.org>
> To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:05:32 +0100
> Hi all,
> Org tries to stay as simple/accessible as possible for newbie and as
> complete/flexible as possible for power users.
> The documentation and the UI are central for this: the documentation
> should promote core features, document complex ones, and give pointers
> on how to hack Org -- it does that already IMO; the UI should give
> access to core features and give hints on complex ones, so that the
> user can learn more.
> I've just added the ability to run a custom function for bulk agenda
> actions (thanks to Puneeth for the patch!) This is clearly for power
> users -- or those who are willing to take the time to find functions
> that we might document in Worg.
> So I naturally thought of something like an "Org Expert mode": when
> turned off, the UI would *not* give access to complex features and
> perhaps display more helpful messages on simple ones; when turned on,
> Org would have a less verbose UI (think of the C-c C-e window, do we
> really want to *read* it all the times?) and give access to all the
> complex features.
> This is really just a call for ideas/comments -- I wonder if people
> already came accross such an idea and and what they think.
> I'm myself not convinced: it's a good thing that Org doesn't need an
> Expert mode so far, it means newbies are not confused by the UI, and
> experts are not frustrated by it either. But I expect neat features
> can emerge from the discussion.
> Thanks for your thoughts!
> --
> Bastien
--
Snow B.V. http://snow.nl
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2011-03-10 21:25 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 21+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2011-03-10 10:05 Org expert mode? Bastien
2011-03-10 10:11 ` Bastien
2011-03-10 10:36 ` Rainer M Krug
2011-03-20 2:08 ` Matt Lundin
2011-03-21 7:25 ` Rainer M Krug
2011-03-10 12:38 ` Greg Troxel
2011-03-10 14:14 ` John Hendy
2011-03-10 10:35 ` Filippo A. Salustri
2011-03-10 15:30 ` Julien Danjou
2011-03-10 17:43 ` Scott Randby
2011-03-10 18:46 ` Samuel Wales
2011-03-10 23:46 ` Suvayu Ali
2011-03-10 19:33 ` Robert Pluim
2011-03-10 21:25 ` Joost Helberg [this message]
2011-03-10 21:41 ` Eric Schulte
2011-03-10 23:22 ` Bernt Hansen
2011-03-11 8:28 ` Bastien
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2011-03-10 13:12 Rustom Mody
2011-03-10 13:44 ` Rainer M Krug
2011-03-10 14:11 ` Matthew Sauer
2011-03-10 22:37 ` Christian Moe
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