bug#56508: Suggestions for the "Help" menu

[Stefan Kangas]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
>> Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2022 21:04:51 -0500
>>
>> Suggestions for the "Help" menu:
>
> I object.  We just reshuffled that menu recently, let's not touch it
> for another major release or two.

Sorry, I must have missed that we did that.  In any case, I don't think
that is very good grounds for not making further improvements.

> Specific comments:
>
>>     1. Remove "Emacs FAQ".  It is not nearly as up-to-date as the
>>        manual, and most users these days will either find it by other
>>        means or just search the web.
>
> So you are basically saying we don't need the FAQ?

I'm saying that we don't need it in the menu (at least not in its
current shape).

>>     2. Remove "Emacs Psychotherapist".  Sorry, but in terms of chatbots
>>        there are *way* better ones out there these days.  If anything,
>>        move it to "Games".
>
> I object to making Emacs dead serious, because it will make it dead.

Agreed, but there is plenty of space between "dead serious" and
"whimsical".

>>     3. Remove "Non(Warranty)" and "Getting New Versions" as it is
>>        already available under "About Emacs".
>
> These are politically motivated and cannot be removed.

Too bad.

>>     4. Under "Describe" we have the item "Show all of Mule Status" which
>>        is a rather hard-to-understand name.  Does it need to be there?
>
> Yes.
>
>>        Should it get a better name?
>
> Do you have any suggestions?

"Show Multilanguage Status" is already an improvement.

>>     5. "Describe Coding System Briefly" under "Describe" -- is this
>>        useful?  I just get this cryptic message here:
>>
>>        F[U:],K[U:],T[U:],P>[=:],P<[=:], default F[U:],P>[U:],P<[U:]
>
> It's completely understandable here: File encoding, Keyboard encoding,
> Terminal encoding, Process encoding (input and output).

I don't doubt that you understand it, but I don't think many new users
will.  I don't understand almost any of it myself.  For example, what
does "=:" mean?  And what does "default" mean?

This looks like a power-users tool, not like something that belongs in
the help menu, to me.