Comment by JadeNB
9 hours ago
> This weird command is presented with such a benevolent innocence as if it's the simplest thing in the world.
I think it's a question of context and familiarity. To a vim user, like me and, I assume, ahmedfromtunis, their examples do indeed seem simple and natural. Presumably, to an emacs user, the example you quote (if it's quoted literally—I don't use emacs and can't even tell) is just as natural, and assuming some comfort with emacs is presumably OK in a manual for the software!
> assuming some comfort with emacs is presumably OK in a manual for the software!
How do you get familiar with the software, if the manual expects you to be an expert in it already?
I got familiar with vi by reading a book that had the main vi commands listed out. First learnt how to quit without saving changes, the rest was just practice.
Not sure if it did at the time, but today emacs comes with a tutorial. You’re not expected to learn it by starting on page 1 of the manual.
Why not? I expect to learn how to use a software by reading its manual.
1 reply →
By reading introductory material.
The example confusingly includes some weird markup. It's just saying press `ESC-?` then type "window" to search for window commands. These isn't even valid in modern Emacs. The equivalent is `C-h` followed by `a` then type "window".