From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Carsten Dominik Subject: Re: Cryptic error message(s) Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:53:25 +0100 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v936) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=52217 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PTG94-0007Fu-CZ for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 16 Dec 2010 10:53:31 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PTG92-0000Nv-Ru for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 16 Dec 2010 10:53:30 -0500 Received: from mail-ew0-f43.google.com ([209.85.215.43]:41358) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PTG92-0000Ne-NV for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Thu, 16 Dec 2010 10:53:28 -0500 Received: by ewy22 with SMTP id 22so2025540ewy.30 for ; Thu, 16 Dec 2010 07:53:27 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: "Alan E. Davis" Cc: org-mode 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 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 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 > > _______________________________________________ > Emacs-orgmode mailing list > Please use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. > Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode