GNU bug report logs - #15095
24.2; mail items in Tools menu confusing to new users

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From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Carson Chittom <carson <at> wistly.net>
Cc: 15095 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#15095: 24.2; mail items in Tools menu confusing to new users
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 21:05:00 +0300

> From: Carson Chittom <carson <at> wistly.net>
> 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)

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
developed as part of Gnus, but you can send email with it without
firing up Gnus.  Since a few versions ago, Emacs uses message.el as
the default way of sending email (it was sendmail.el before).

Another issue that might be confusing here is that you can start mail
composition and send it without reading any email before that.  That's
why there are 2 menu items instead of one.

Finally, Rmail cannot send mail, it uses either message.el or
sendmail.el for that.

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