Subject: bug#15576: 24.3.50; Some minor issues regarding the new TTY menus

From: Dani Moncayo <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2013 22:11:48 +0200

>> 1. The "Buffers" menu becomes "Select Buffers" when selected (see
>> capture-1.png).  I think that the text of the menus should not change
>> upon selection.
>
> The text shown at the top of the menu is the so-called "prompt string"
> that comes from the menu structure.  And in menu-bar.el we have this:
>
>          ;; We used to "(define-key (current-global-map) [menu-bar buffer]"
>          ;; but that did not do the right thing when the [menu-bar buffer]
>          ;; entry above had been moved (e.g. to a parent keymap).
>          (setcdr global-buffers-menu-map (cons "Select Buffer" buffers-menu)))))
>                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> The menu display code does not invent anything, it just shows what's
> in the menu.  If you want to change that, change menu-bar.el.
> (Personally, I don't see why "Select Buffer" is wrong here, but that's
> me.)

I think "Select Buffer" is wrong simply because it is different from
"Buffers".  I mean, what is the point of showing one text (Buffers)
when the menu is not selected, and another text (Select Buffer) when
it is?  I've not seen such a thing before anywhere, and I don't see
what sense it does make.  (the GUI "Buffer" menu of course does not
exhibits such a strange behavior).

>> 2. When I select the "Help" menu, the drop-down list is shown shifted a
>> bit to the left wrt its "normal" position, because of lack of enough
>> space at the right side of the window (see capture-2.png).  That's OK,
>> but the menu header ("Help") should not be shifted at all from its
>> original position (only the drop-down list should be).
>
> The menu is dropped as a single entity, and the heading (the prompt
> string) starts at the left edge of the menu.

That's the current behavior, yes.

> So this is by design, and won't change.

Well, the current design is surely simpler, but IMO it is definitely
not the best one.  When I am navigating through the top level menus I
obviously expect every header to stay where it was before it was
selected.  When I type C-f to reach the "Help" menu (from the
Lisp-Interaction menu) and see that weird effect... mmm it clearly
feels counter intuitive to me.

>> As you can see, the "elp" string at the right side looks weird.
>
> It doesn't look weird to me, but I'm used to this.

?? What sense does it make to show that residual "elp" string at the
right of the "Help" header?  It is not the end of the world, but I
really don't think it is TRT either.

> Try clicking the
> mouse on the menu bar, somewhere within the "Help" string, and you
> will see that the menu is dropped where the mouse clicks, not
> necessarily where the "Help" is.

The mouse doesn't work here (on a TTY session).

> IOW, this is a feature.

I hope you to reconsider that, because IMHO it is a misfeature.

>> 3. From a GUI session, disable menu-bar-mode and type F10.  I see that
>> the old text mode menu is shown.  Why not show the new drop-down text
>> menu instead?
>
> Because the code for the new drop-down text menu will not work in the
> GUI session.  The internals of the display engine which the menu code
> piggy-backs are completely different in the GUI mode.

That's a pity.  It would be nice to have those drop-down text menus
also on GUI sessions.  Then consider this point a feature request then
(who knows, perhaps some day it might be implemented).

> I tend to close this as not-a-bug.  Any reasons not to?

See above, but you are the maintainer, so you decide.

-- 
Dani Moncayo