Re: Interactive guide for new users (was: Re: Gather a list of confusions beginner tend to have)

[Gregory Heytings]

> > > But the tutorial is not just about keybindings.  It explains a lot of 
> > > other turf, mainly the important concepts: buffer, window, mode line, 
> > > etc.
> >
> > A new user does not need to understand those subtleties.
>
> I wouldn't call these basics "subtleties".  They are the most 
> fundamental terminology in Emacs.

They are indeed, I'm not denying this.  My point of view here is: what are 
the most essential things that a user needs to know to use Emacs if we 
have no more than three minutes?  Clearly (at least to me) it is possible 
to use Emacs without knowing what a "buffer" or a "window" is.

> > He already has an intuitive notion of what a buffer and a window are, 
> > which suffices to start using Emacs.
>
> He does?  Where from?  Windows mean something else in the other apps, 
> and buffers are not available in most of them.

Indeed "window" mean something else for other apps, but why is this 
important for a new user who just wants to edit files?  There are other 
apps in which the screen is splitted in different areas, so he would not 
be surprised when this happens.  And "buffers" are of course available in 
many apps, in most office suites (and text editors) you can just create a 
file with "new" and it's "something that does not correspond to a file 
(yet)".

> > BTW, there is another option that I would add in screen 3: 
> > tab-line-mode.
>
> Is the tab-line really such an important feature?  If so, why isn't it 
> turned on by default?

I'm not saying that tab-line is an important feature.  It's not an 
important feature for you or me, but it's common in many apps (web 
browsers, text editors) to have a tab-line on which one can click to 
navigate between "buffers".