Subject: Re: bug#15095: 24.2; mail items in Tools menu confusing to new users

From: Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 15:10:32 -0400

>> This bug report is regarding the usability of the menu system. The
>> "Tools" menu has three options for mail/news:
>> 
>> - Read Net News (Gnus)
>> - Read Mail (RMAIL)
>> - Send Mail (with Gnus Message)   C-x m
>> 
>> Any user new to Emacs would, reasonably in my view, ask, "Why do I read
>> Net News with Gnus and send mail with Gnus Message (is that different
>> from just Gnus?) but read mail with RMAIL?" My recommendation is to
>> eliminate a specific "Send Mail" menu item, since I think most people
>> think of reading and sending mail together as a single task.  We'd then
>> have two items, something like:
>> 
>> - Read/Send Mail & Net News (Gnus)
>> - Read/Send Mail (RMAIL)

I think "Send Mail" should be replaced with "Compose new mail".  Then it
makes more sense to have a separate entry for it.

And the (Gnus) and (RMAIL) annotations should be removed from the
menu item.  They could be moved to the :help-echo thingy, but they need
to make it clear that it's just the currently configured "backend".

> That's not really the issue here.  The real problem is that the "Gnus"
> part of "Gnus Message" is misleading: message.el is a package that was

Indeed, the name should just be "Message".

        Stefan