Subject: 24.2; mail items in Tools menu confusing to new users

From: Carson Chittom <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 11:48:37 -0500

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)

In GNU Emacs 24.2.1 (x86_64-unknown-openbsd, GTK+ Version 2.24.14)
 of 2013-02-26 on amd64.ports.openbsd.org
Configured using:
 `configure '--build=amd64-unknown-openbsd' '--without-compress-info'
 '--with-x-toolkit=gtk' '--prefix=/usr/local' '--sysconfdir=/etc'
 '--mandir=/usr/local/man' '--infodir=/usr/local/info'
 '--localstatedir=/var' '--disable-silent-rules'
 'build_alias=amd64-unknown-openbsd' 'CC=cc' 'CFLAGS=-O2 -pipe -fno-pie'
 'LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib -nopie' 'CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include
 -I/usr/local/include/libpng -DHAVE_SOUND''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: nil
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: nil
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
i g h t l y SPC m o r e SPC c o m p l i c a t e d , 
SPC s i n c e SPC i t SPC g i v e s SPC a SPC r e s 
o DEL DEL a s o n a b l e SPC DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL 
DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL 
DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL : SPC SPC 
I SPC g o t SPC " p e r m i s s i o n SPC d e n i e 
d " SPC o n SPC W i n d o w s , SPC b u t SPC C-c k 
C-x k RET y e s RET ESC [ 5 ~ ESC [ 5 ~ c y RET RET 
SPC SPC SPC ESC O B ESC O A SPC SPC SPC SPC SPC SPC 
SPC SPC SPC SPC SPC SPC ESC O B RET SPC SPC SPC SPC 
ESC O B RET ESC O B RET ESC O B ESC O B ESC O B ESC 
O B ESC O A ESC O A ESC O A RET SPC SPC SPC SPC ESC 
O B RET SPC ESC O B RET SPC ESC O B RET SPC DEL SPC 
ESC O B RET SPC SPC SPC SPC SPC SPC ESC O B RET SPC 
DEL ESC O B ESC [ 6 ~ c y ESC O A ESC O A c y q y ESC 
x e m a c s - r e p o r t - b u g RET C-a C-k r e p 
o r t - e m TAB RET

Recent messages:
Auto-saving...done
Mark all unread articles as read? (y or n)  y
Mark all unread articles in gmane.comp.version-control.fossil-scm.user as read? (y or n)  y
Are you sure you want to quit reading news? (y or n)  y
Saving file /home/carson/.newsrc...
Wrote /home/carson/.newsrc
Saving /home/carson/.newsrc.eld...
Saving file /home/carson/.newsrc.eld...
Wrote /home/carson/.newsrc.eld
Saving /home/carson/.newsrc.eld...done

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow emacsbug vc-fossil vc ediff-merg ediff-diff ediff-wind
ediff-help ediff-util ediff-mult ediff-init ediff vc-dispatcher
flow-fill newcomment qp mule-util sort gnus-cite mail-extr gnus-async
gnus-bcklg gnus-ml disp-table nndraft nnmh nnmbox utf-7 gnutls nnimap
utf7 nnfolder parse-time netrc network-stream auth-source eieio byte-opt
bytecomp byte-compile cconv macroexp assoc starttls tls gnus-agent
gnus-srvr gnus-score score-mode nnvirtual gnus-msg gnus-art mm-uu
mml2015 mm-view mml-smime smime password-cache dig mailcap nntp
gnus-cache gnus-sum nnoo gnus-group gnus-undo nnmail mail-source
epg-config gnus-start gnus-spec gnus-int gnus-range message idna
sendmail format-spec rfc822 mml mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode
mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mailabbrev gmm-utils
mailheader gnus-win gnus gnus-ems nnheader gnus-util mail-utils mm-util
mail-prsvr wid-edit time-date fvwm-mode easymenu bbdb-loaddefs ledger
derived pcomplete comint regexp-opt ansi-color ring esh-arg esh-util
package tabulated-list tooltip ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type
mwheel x-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image fringe lisp-mode register
page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock
font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cham georgian utf-8-lang
misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese hebrew
greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese
case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev minibuffer loaddefs
button faces cus-face files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64
format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable
backquote make-network-process dbusbind dynamic-setting
system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x
multi-tty emacs)