Re: Cryptic error message(s)

[Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>]

Hi Alan,

On Dec 16, 2010, at 3:31 PM, Alan E. Davis wrote:

> I have stumbled over error messages in org mode a few times.  The  
> following message, or permutations thereof, comes up frequently, but  
> each time I am confused about what it means (albeit I have solved it  
> again today):
>
>   "The kill is not a (set of) tree(s) - please use <S-insertchar> to  
> yank anyway".
>
> In each case this message was received because of a nit, in creating  
> a capture template.  Each time, I am consternated for a while,  
> before I realize this.  And each time, I am still consternated until  
> I figure out what the error is.

This means that your template does not look like an org-mode entry
or subtree or even a set of sibling trees, but you have specified
the capture type as `entry' instead of, for example `plain' as in
plain text.

Org capture goes to the location where the entry should be
placed, and then it uses org-paste-subtree to insert the
template at this location.  For this, your capture template
must look like a valid entry or tree.  If not you get this
error message.   Admittedly, this is not extremely useful
in this case.

>
> What does this mean, "use <S-insertchar> to yank anyway." ?   I  
> haven't been able to do anything of the kind.  I think.

S-insertkey is an unfortunate result of a key lookup for the
command yank, which is normally bound to `C-y', but in your setup
also to a key S-insertkey.

Does this help?  I have just pushed a change which should
be give a better error message in this case.  Now it should say:

"Template is not a valid Org entry or tree"

Better?

>
> What does it mean, "the kill is not a (set of) tree(s)" ?
>
> I have sometimes noticed that the problem is a missing asterisk at  
> the start of a line in the template string.  Not sure, though,  
> whether that is what is meant.

Yes. good example for an invalid entry.

HTH

- Carsten

>
> May I humbly request that these error messages be rewritten to  
> reflect the nature of the error in a manner that is understandable  
> by a user?  If I understood them well, I would be willing to suggest  
> other text.  On the other hand, I must say that I don't know how all  
> the non-ENglish speaking programmers do it.  Amazing.
>
>
> This is not the only error message I have tripped over.  Perhaps one  
> could develop a list of error messages, with explanations for  
> each...  How could I grep for error messages in the lisp source, to  
> at least get a list of messages?  Is this something useful to do?
>
> Thank you very much,
>
> Alan Davis
>
> "Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We  
> allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value."
>                                                                                        --- R 
> . Buckminster Fuller
>
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