To: Jani Nikula <jani@nikula.org>, notmuch@notmuchmail.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] emacs: hello: display jump key next to saved search when
 available
In-Reply-To: <87y4aw3hy6.fsf@nikula.org>
References: <1450031043-24038-1-git-send-email-jani@nikula.org>
 <cunwpqgop0m.fsf@disaster-area.hh.sledj.net> <87y4aw3hy6.fsf@nikula.org>
From: David Edmondson <dme@dme.org>
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2016 20:42:56 +0000
Message-ID: <m2r3gl399r.fsf@dme.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Precedence: list

On Sun, Feb 07 2016, Jani Nikula wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Feb 2016, David Edmondson <dme@dme.org> wrote:
>> On Sun, Dec 13 2015, Jani Nikula <jani@nikula.org> wrote:
>>> Display the shortcut jump key next to the saved search name in notmuch
>>> hello, if one is defined for the saved search.
>>
>> I quite like the idea of this (and Mark's followup), but I wonder about
>> the utility. With notmuch-jump, as soon as I hit `j' a list of the
>> possible keystrokes and the corresponding search is presented, so I
>> don't need to refer to the list in the hello buffer to know what to do.
>
> Much of the point in this was to discuss how to make the UI, and the
> very capable features we have, more discoverable to new uses. Most
> people won't start by reading the documentation (which we don't even
> really have for notmuch-emacs). Keeping the UI uncluttered and clean at
> the same time is hard.
>
> Perhaps promoting the '?' key in my other patch is enough. Perhaps an
> alternative would be to highlight the 'j' key in "Saved searches:
> [edit]" somehow.

I think the advertisement of '?' is sufficient. We don't provide an
on-screen guide in any of the other modes and (it appears to be emerging
that) emacs tools are providing help for complex sequences of operations
via secondary popups (like notmuch-jump or the magit equivalent).