Re: Demonstration mode...

[David Kastrup]

"Richard M. Stallman" <address@hidden> writes:

>     whenever I find myself doing a demonstration of Emacs capabilities and
>     features, I find myself using keyboard commands.  That is not helpful
>     to onlookers who just see magic happening.
>
>     So I have to force myself to use the mouse.
>
> I don't understand how using the mouse makes things clearer.

It is visible on the computer screen.  A demonstration nowadays
usually consists of having a laptop connected to a beamer.  Using the
keyboard makes the screen change "magically" which tells people
"masters will be able to work this, not I myself".  Using the menus
shows what one is doing on the screen, and it suggests that it is easy
to find out what to do.

> Is it that you use menus to invoke the commands?  How inconvenient.

Definitely.  That's why I want to use the keyboard, but have it look
like I would be using the mouse.  Which also shows the keyboard
shortcuts in the menus.

> I used to teach classes in editing with Emacs, and people would
> watch a big screen acting as a secondary monitor for my computer.  I
> would tell them what I was typing as I typed it, and go slow enough
> that they could follow what I did and what effect it had.

That's for plain tutorials.  I am more interested in frontal talks
where just I myself am doing the work.  The time slots I have
available on typical conferences are not sufficient for teaching
people to do everything that is possible within Emacs for writing
LaTeX texts.  I am happy if I manage just to _show_ it.

>     whenever Emacs finds that I used a key sequence from the current
>     major mode (it should be configurable which keymaps it consults
>     for a particular demo) that is also available as a menu, Emacs
>     should fake myself using the mouse:
>
> Why not just display the keys you type in another window?
> That would also enable people to follow what you are doing.
> It would be easier to implement, and it would show them
> a good method to imitate, instead of a bad one.

The menus show the keyboard shortcuts.  Having two frames/windows to
watch will probably cost more concentration than following the visual
lead of a moving mouse cursor.

I am not saying that a demonstration mode showing keyboard shortcuts
in a separate window would not also be a good idea: particularly for
tutorials it might be pretty good, particularly as people can take
their time typing the keysequences off (as long as they don't
disappear, but are kept as a sort of a log), something which is not
possible when trying to demonstrate using the mouse.

However, for a frontal demonstration, the mouse thingy still appears
more appealing to me, in particular when trying to recruit new users.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum