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To: XEmacs Beta Mailing List <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>
Cc: Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk>
Subject: Customize: Ease Of Use?
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From: Adrian Aichner <aichner@ecf.teradyne.com>
Date: 07 Mar 1997 04:34:44 +0100
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Hi All,

I'd like to add some frog perspective:

The beginner will benefit most from an easy, safe way of manipulating
faces (and other things) in XEmacs, right?

So I'm that novice and I check my `Options'.

One is to `Edit Faces ...' so I'll do that. Who would ask for `Help'
(Customize) when it seems that the Options menu is straight-forward.

So, `Edit Faces' is really cu-edit-faces, which is `custom-face' more or
less. So I go about changing fonts. I want to change the `default'
font and find the promising entry `Family', now who's family is that?
Oh the font's, I see. What legal values are there? Hmmh, none, ? does
not complete on any. Hours later I have the visionary experience to do
a C-h a font.*family

and find the poorly documented `font-family-mappings', expecting the
first entry of each list is the key for the family with the remaining
entries being legal values. Nope! Ah, finally I figure out that what
*I* really want is "lucidatypewriter".

I had tried "-*-Lucida Sans Typewriter-*-R-*-*-*-120-75-75-*-*-ISO8859-1"
before, which custom saved for me as:
" * Lucida Sans Typewriter * R * * * 120 75 75 * * ISO8859 1"
Well, thanks.

Also the Family:
can be edited in the minibuffer (when hitting return
on the family value). But the minibuffer editing is non-standard: I
cannot just go the beginning of the value (C-a) and kill to the end
(by C-k) because there is matching for "\n"going on, brrrrr!
It can be edited more conveniently be TAB-ing or mousing to it and
killing the value in-place with C-k and typing.

The Foreground:
value cannot be edited in-place in the custom buffer. You have to hit
RETURN and do the editing in the minibuffer, but you get legal color
values by completing on ?. Now that is dandy! I quickly choose a color
of my liking and carry on, to apply me changes. I back-up by S-TAB or
A-TAB all the way to the [*] box. On RETURN I get prompted what I
want. Encouraged from me recent success with ? I do just that and see
`Set' amongst others. I type set. No, no, I have to type Set. Isn't
that what it said in that first place? Bad user! Alternatively, I
could have typed saRETURN. Completion would change that to Set, but
set just doesn't work. OK, Set, Save, I am done (or was that finished?).

Oh, yes, I was `Editing Faces...' and now I want to change the size of
all the fonts (I left them alone in the custom buffer) via
Options
	Size
		12
and
Save Options

Now there is a real integration problem! These font sizes get saved
nowhere!

I'll have to do that in the customization buffer as well but nobody
tells me that.

Using
M-x custom-faces font-by-font greatly improves startup-performance of
the custom buffer BTW.

Short Break

I am starting to appreciate `custom' after fighting with it for a *few*
hours. I'm afraid five less enduring Xemacs beginners will have turned
their back on custom during that time. I think all these issues are
just minor integration issues which surely can be fixed, font family
completion support being a real important one. And, hey, this is
called beta-software still, so I'm not really complaining.

And please separate the old Edit Faces functionality very clearly from
`Customize'. That suggestion to move Edit Faces to the Tools menu and
call it Browse Faces ... seems like an excellent suggestion.

Good Night :-]
:-:-
Adrian

-- 
  Teradyne GmbH               Adrian Aichner Applications Engineer
  Semiconductor Test Group    Telephone      +49/89/418 61 (0)-208
  Dingolfinger Strasse 2      Fax            +49/89/418 61-217
  D-81673 M"UNCHEN            E-mail         aichner@ecf.teradyne.com

