Re: new user assistant

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>]

"Ted Zlatanov" <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> ;; defaults to nnml
> @variable backends :'(set (const :tag "Read news via NNTP" nntp)
>                           (const :tag "Read news via RSS" nnrss)
>                           (const :tag "Read news from Slashdot" nnslashdot)
>                           (const :tag "Manage TODO items" nntodo)
>                           (const :tag "Read mail with nnml" nnml)
>                           (const :tag "Read mail with nnmaildir" nnmaildir)
>                           (const :tag "Read mail with nnimap" nnimap))
>                     '(nnml)

[...]

> ;; note that @next is a list, so we are building a tree starting at
> ;; this node - this is a very important piece of the format
> ;; I'm not worrying about the correctness of the backquoted macros,
> ;; this is just a demo of the "next node" syntax
> @next `(,@(when (assq 'nnml backends) "Configuring the nnml backend")
>         ,@(when (assq 'nntp backends) "Configuring the NNTP backend")
>        [...]
>         ,@(when (eq sendmail outbound) "Configuring sendmail")
>         ,@(when (eq smtp outbound) "Configuring SMTP"))

I don't think you'll need macros -- these things will be funcalled,
anyway.  (That is, wrapped in `lambda' forms.  Or perhaps just evaled.

Anyway, I don't think there'll be just one assistant -- the menu will
have lots of them, so it's not necessary to start with "do you want
to set up news or mail?"  And that might make navigation easier.

So, if we just allow one element to branch, that could perhaps be
expressed more succinctly... 

@next nntp "Reading news from a news server"
@next nnspool "Reading news from the local spool"

Or something.  (Except that the last one wouldn't be an option,
because it's really rare that anybody would want to do nnspool.  :-)

> What do you think about the format, before I write more?

I think it's nice.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen