GNU bug report logs - #4787
23.1; in Customize, after showing Lisp expression, how to see normal?

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Message #5 received at submit <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
To: <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org>
Subject: 23.1; in Customize, after showing Lisp expression, how to see normal?
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:00:30 -0700

emacs -Q
M-x customize-face default
In Customize, click State > Show Lisp Expression.
 
It now seems to be impossible to get back the normal display, i.e., to
not see the Lisp expression anymore.
 
In fact, the 3 menu items For Current Display, For All Displays, and
Show Lisp Expression are 3 _alternatives_. They should be radio-button
menu items, not just normal menu items.
 
And the item names should be parallel. There is no understandable
relation between "For Current Display", for instance, and "Show Lisp
Expression". Those don't seem to have anything to do with each
other. There is no way to guess that these are alternatives.
 
I even started to write this bug saying that there was no way to get
back the normal display. Fiddling and trying things, I eventually
discovered that For Current Display did the job. This is NOT AT ALL
obvious - horrible UI.
 
This is a regression wrt Emacs 21 (and 20), where the menu items were
clear.
 
 
 
In GNU Emacs 23.1.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2009-07-29 on SOFT-MJASON
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
configured using `configure --with-gcc (4.4)'
 

Message #10 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
To: <4787 <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com>, <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org>
Subject: RE: bug#4787: 23.1;
	in Customize, after showing Lisp expression, how to see normal?
Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2012 10:42:00 -0800

> severity 4787 wishlist

1. There is no way that a user looking for a way to show the normal,
non-Lisp-expression display of an option value, would think to try "For Current
Display".

2. Mutually exclusive UI alternatives should be presented as such.  Having
multiple menu items, of which a few are in fact alternatives, is misleading to
users.

There are two problems wrt this UI: (1) inappropriate menu-item name for what
`For Current Display" does and (2) no way to see that 3 of the menu items are
mutually exclusive alternatives.

(I'm not sure now where I saw "For Current Display", "For All Displays", and
"Show Lisp Expression".  Perhaps that was from an earlier Emacs 24 build -
dunno.  Now I see "Show Current Value" and "Show Saved Lisp Expression".  But
the essential problems are the same as I've described.)

Message #16 received at 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Mauro Aranda <maurooaranda <at> gmail.com>
To: 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: Drew Adams <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
Subject: Re: bug#4787: 23.1; in Customize, after showing Lisp expression, how
 to see normal?
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2020 12:24:19 -0300

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams <at> oracle.com> writes:

> emacs -Q
> M-x customize-face default
> In Customize, click State > Show Lisp Expression.
>
> It now seems to be impossible to get back the normal display, i.e., to
> not see the Lisp expression anymore.
>
> In fact, the 3 menu items For Current Display, For All Displays, and
> Show Lisp Expression are 3 _alternatives_. They should be radio-button
> menu items, not just normal menu items.

I think it would be nice to display them as radio buttons.  But, this
menus in Custom are displayed with `widget-choose', and `widget-choose'
doesn't support menus in the so-called extended menu format.

So I took a look to see if that would be easy to do.  I attach a patch for
review.
If the feature is accepted, then it shouldn't be too hard to change
Custom to pass a menu with radio-buttons for these options.

> And the item names should be parallel. There is no understandable
> relation between "For Current Display", for instance, and "Show Lisp
> Expression". Those don't seem to have anything to do with each
> other. There is no way to guess that these are alternatives.

Perhaps "Customize Face For Current Display" and "Customize Face For All
Kinds of Display" is better? Kinda long, though.

Anyway, I attach a patch to add support for extended menus in
widget-choose, as a first step to add radio buttons for related options
in these Custom menus.

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

[0001-Support-extended-menus-in-widget-choose.patch (text/x-patch, attachment)]

Message #19 received at 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Mauro Aranda <maurooaranda <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#4787: 23.1; in Customize, after showing Lisp expression,
 how to see normal?
Date: Sat, 03 Oct 2020 19:32:19 +0200

Mauro Aranda <maurooaranda <at> gmail.com> writes:

> Anyway, I attach a patch to add support for extended menus in
> widget-choose, as a first step to add radio buttons for related options
> in these Custom menus.

Looks good to me, so I've pushed this to the trunk.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Message #22 received at 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Mauro Aranda <maurooaranda <at> gmail.com>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#4787: 23.1; in Customize, after showing Lisp expression, how
 to see normal?
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2020 10:28:49 -0300

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org> writes:

> Mauro Aranda <maurooaranda <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Anyway, I attach a patch to add support for extended menus in
>> widget-choose, as a first step to add radio buttons for related options
>> in these Custom menus.
>
> Looks good to me, so I've pushed this to the trunk.

Great, thanks.

The attached patch makes Custom use extended menus when invoking the
State button.

With this patch, custom-menu-filter wouldn't be used anymore in Custom,
but I've found that the jdee package uses it.  Another concern is that
there might be 3rd party code that assumes these custom menus are
in the simplified menu format, and add stuff to the list, or some other
stuff.

I'm not really sure what to do about it.

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

[0001-Make-the-State-button-in-Custom-use-extended-menus.patch (text/x-patch, attachment)]

Message #25 received at 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Mauro Aranda <maurooaranda <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#4787: 23.1; in Customize, after showing Lisp expression,
 how to see normal?
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 2020 03:34:09 +0200

Mauro Aranda <maurooaranda <at> gmail.com> writes:

> With this patch, custom-menu-filter wouldn't be used anymore in Custom,
> but I've found that the jdee package uses it.  Another concern is that
> there might be 3rd party code that assumes these custom menus are
> in the simplified menu format, and add stuff to the list, or some other stuff.
>
> I'm not really sure what to do about it.

Is there a way to make this backwards-compatible?  For instance, by
introducing a new name for the new menu stuff, and having a
compatibility shim for the old custom menus?

I say this without having looked at the code closely, so I'm kinda
uninformed here.  

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Message #28 received at 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Mauro Aranda <maurooaranda <at> gmail.com>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#4787: 23.1; in Customize, after showing Lisp expression, how
 to see normal?
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2020 09:39:21 -0300

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org> writes:

> Mauro Aranda <maurooaranda <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>> With this patch, custom-menu-filter wouldn't be used anymore in Custom,
>> but I've found that the jdee package uses it.  Another concern is that
>> there might be 3rd party code that assumes these custom menus are
>> in the simplified menu format, and add stuff to the list, or some other
stuff.
>>
>> I'm not really sure what to do about it.
>
> Is there a way to make this backwards-compatible?  For instance, by
> introducing a new name for the new menu stuff, and having a
> compatibility shim for the old custom menus?
>
> I say this without having looked at the code closely, so I'm kinda
> uninformed here.

I attach a more conservative patch.  It could get more conservative (and
more hacky at the same time), but maybe this one is enough.

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

[0001-Make-the-State-button-in-Custom-use-extended-menus.patch (text/x-patch, attachment)]

Message #31 received at 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Mauro Aranda <maurooaranda <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 4787 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#4787: 23.1; in Customize, after showing Lisp expression,
 how to see normal?
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2020 04:36:30 +0200

Mauro Aranda <maurooaranda <at> gmail.com> writes:

> I attach a more conservative patch.  It could get more conservative (and
> more hacky at the same time), but maybe this one is enough.

Thanks; looks good, and I've applied it to Emacs 28.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

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