Re: Making Emacs more newbie friendly

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "rgb" <rbielaws@i1.net>
> Date: 18 Mar 2005 23:57:23 -0800
> 
> the defaults have the cool stuff turned off

Some of the ``cool stuff'' is turned off because the veteran users
find it so annoying that they protest vociferously each time someone
suggests them to be turned on by default.

> so you must learn all about customizing and what's available and how
> to turn each feature on before your really using it.

Yes, an Emacs user needs to know how to customize it.  But it's not
true that they must learn about customizations to turn the frequently
wanted features on.  All you need to do is click on the menu bar and
select "Options".  I'd bet it takes a newbie no longer than 2 seconds
to find that menu-bar item.

> Even transient-mark-mode is off by default.

But it's under "Options".  Pufff! not an issue ;-)