Re: No "Edit" menu-item in "Gnus"

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

>     >> There are several items on that menu that are useful when
>     >> reading mail and news.
>     >
>     > Which specific items do you have in mind?  I'd guess that at least the
>     > most important "Search" and "Go To" items have Gnus equivalents.
>
>     "Select All", "Copy", "Go To > Find Tag", "Beginning of buffer" ...
>     (If those are useless in Gnus, then they are useless in everywhere)
>     and:
>     "Text Properties > Describe Properties"
>
> In general, I'd say:
>
> 1. Edit shouldn't be removed from the menu-bar for the sole reason
> of saving menu-bar space and because the buffer might be
> unmodifiable.

Menus are for frequently used commands.  If in a particular situation
the entries of a menu are of rare use, and others are more important,
omitting the rarely used menu might make sense.

> If there is a problem with menu-bar space in some context, then some
> other solution should be adopted. One solution is to have a
> pull-down menu (e.g.  "More", "...", or a triangle arrow) that
> combines some other menus as submenus. Another solution is to let
> the menu-bar extend over multiple lines when necessary - that's the
> current default, and it's OK too.
>
> It's silly to assume a fixed frame width, in any case, and to base
> decisions of which menus to include on that width. I shrink-fit
> frames to fit their buffers, for example, so they have different
> widths. Other people always maximize their frames, or always use
> some fixed width that's different from the default.

The menu bar should fit on an 80-column text tty.  That is a hard
limit that can't be come by by changing font sizes or resizing
windows.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum