Subject: Re: bug#1305: All code that currently beeps should use visual bellinstead

From: Tim Connors <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:32:38 +1100 (EST)

"Jason Spiro" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 2008/11/10 Richard M. Stallman <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> For changes like this, you should poll the users, with a poll
>> announced at least on info-gnu-emacs and help-gnu-emacs.
>>
>> To get the most useful information in return, it is important to ask
>> them to state the reasons for their preference, rather than simply to
>> "vote".
>
> We should poll for which change?  Surely removing beeping from the
> trivial things like:
>
> * quit (C-g), and
> * moving the point off the end of the buffer, and
> * failing isearches
>
> should not require a poll.

See, I very much disagree that at least one of these is a "trivial" use,
which demonstrates that deciding not to ask for a poll because *you* think
something is obviously the case is a flawed proposition.

For the first year of the life of this laptop, the sound driver didn't
output beeps at all, which made editing in emacs very much more painful
(the latest ALSA release restores beeps for this chipset, yay).

I find visible-bell *way* too distracting, so use beeps (I can turn it
down and control its pitch, but I can't make reverse video any less of a
shock to the eyesight).  And I've lost count of the number of times I've
gone more than once around a buffer doing an isearch, because I failed to
hear the non-existant beep telling me I had already gone around once.  A
simple visual notification in the status area is not enough, because
almost by definition the entire screen is changing every isearch anyway,
so a few extra words saying "failing i-search" doesn't get noticed.

-- 
TimC
cat /kat/ n.  A furry keyboard cover