From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/88728 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: =?utf-8?Q?Adam_Sj=C3=B8gren?= Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2019 19:55:51 +0200 Organization: koldfront - analysis & revolution, Copenhagen, Denmark Message-ID: <87zhk5ox94.fsf@tullinup.koldfront.dk> References: <87o90mm4x2.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="134442"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/27.0.50 (gnu/linux) To: ding@gnus.org Original-X-From: ding-owner+M36932@lists.math.uh.edu Mon Aug 19 19:56:39 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: ding-account@gmane.org Original-Received: from lists1.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.208]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1hzltW-000Ysu-QU for ding-account@gmane.org; Mon, 19 Aug 2019 19:56:38 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.math.uh.edu) by lists1.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1hzlt4-0004q8-AY; Mon, 19 Aug 2019 12:56:10 -0500 Original-Received: from mx1.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.32]) by lists1.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1.3:TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1hzlsx-0004n7-OR for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Mon, 19 Aug 2019 12:56:03 -0500 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.231.51]) by mx1.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1.2:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1hzlsw-0000dy-6q for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Mon, 19 Aug 2019 12:56:03 -0500 Original-Received: from 195-159-176-226.customer.powertech.no ([195.159.176.226] helo=blaine.gmane.org) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1hzlss-0004S5-M0 for ding@gnus.org; Mon, 19 Aug 2019 19:56:00 +0200 Original-Received: from list by blaine.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1hzlsr-000YD8-7L for ding@gnus.org; Mon, 19 Aug 2019 19:55:57 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ OpenPGP: id=476630590A231909B0A0961A49D0746121BDE416; url=https://asjo.koldfront.dk/gpg.asc Mail-Follow-Up-To: never X-Face: )qY&CseJ?.:=8F#^~GcSA?F=9eu'{KAFfL1C3/A&:nE?PW\i65"ba0NS)97,Q(^@xk}n4Ou rPuR#V8I(J_@~H($[ym:`K_+]*kjvW>xH5jbgLBVFGXY:(#4P>zVBklLbdL&XxL\M)%T}3S/IS9lMJ ^St'=VZBR Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:88728 Archived-At: Eric writes: > Let me know if you have any comments/questions/suggestions! Nitpicks and comments follow. > ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ > DON’T PANIC > ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ It's cute with a Douglas Adams reference, but I think a headline that is more descriptive of the contents is warranted. > Welcome, gentle user, to the Gnus newsreader and email client! Gnus is > unlike most clients, in part because of its gross configurability, and I agree with (the other) Eric that "gross" sounds a little too.. icky? > While Gnus is now a fully-featured email client, it began life as a > newsreader, and its DNA is still newsreader DNA. I think I understand where you are going with this, but Gnus is still a newsreader, right? This sentence sounds like it isn't anymore. > 3. Gnus will only show you groups with unread or ticked articles; Is "ticked" articles a Gnusism? Maybe "marked" or "flagged" would be more accessible to a newcomer? Come to think of it, will the average email user who hasn't heard of usenet know that "article" for mail is synonymous with "email"? A little later you use the term "message", which might be less confusing up here as well? > If this seems draconian, think of it as Enforced Inbox Zero. "Enforced" sounds so negative. Automatic Inbox Zero? "Now, with more AIZ!" > This is the way Gnus works by default. It is possible to make it work > more like an email client (always showing read groups and read > messages), but that will take some effort on the part of the user, and > Gnus won’t ever really like it. Does Gnus have an opinion? It's more like it is unnatural or counter to the design, right? (I said I would nitpick...) > When sending messages, too, Gnus makes a distinction between news-like > and mail-like behavior. News servers handle mail delivery themselves, Perhaps "message delivery"? > Mail message composition starts with “m” in the *Group* buffer, or “r” > if you’re replying to an existing message. Won't most users expect to use R or F, rather than r? o o o I'm not really sure where you're aiming with this. It's too vague to be a tutorial, it's too limited to be a manual. An email-biased introduction? Perhaps use a headline to set the tone/ambition. It is hard to write a tutorial without getting bogged down in details that won't fit every reader, I know - even from experience. Maybe it's been too long since I've read the manual. (And no, I won't go read any of the vim-tutorials you referred to ;-)) I think I sound more negative than I wanted to, here. It makes sense to me, to have a more gentle introduction/overview in the beginning of the manual and I think you've got a good start. Documentation is hard, let's go code. Best regards, Adam -- "Lanois can get passionate about what he feels to be Adam Sjøgren true," Dylan said. "He's not above smashing guitars. asjo@koldfront.dk I never cared about that unless it was one of mine."