Subject: RE: bug#20105: 25.0.50; Emacs manual, `i HOME RET' sends you to `Moving Point', which is wrong

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2015 07:46:49 -0700 (PDT)

> > For `i home TAB' you see these candidates:
> > HOME
> > home directory shorthand
> >
> > In my setup I see also these two, but for some reason I don't see them
> > with `emacs -Q':
> > HOME directory on MS-Windows
> > HOME directory under MS-DOS
> 
> I see all 4 of them in "emacs -Q".  Not sure why you don't; perhaps
> because your build is very old (but I doubt that).

No, I see only 2, even in this recent build (see end of this message).

> Do you have INFOPATH set in the environment, perhaps?

Nope.

> > In any case, those with the uppercase HOME should presumably not point
> > to node `Moving Point' (and, in particular, to the key `<home>'.  That
> > is wrong.  Presumably, `HOME' should take you to some information about
> > environment variable `HOME' or at least about the home directory.
> 
> I disagree.  In general, index searches are deliberately
> case-insensitive.  In this particular case, you might assume that
> everyone knows the key is called <home>, but a seasonal reader of the
> manual does not necessarily know that; he could, for example, take
> inspiration from SPC, RET, TAB, etc.  We shouldn't fail those users,
> IMO.

I agree about (a) case-insensitive "in general" and (b) users might not
know about `<home>' vs `home' vs `HOME'.

But why is `HOME' capitalized as a candidate if it points to info about
the key?  That can only be misleading, I think.  I don't think Emacs
ever refers to the key that way (unlike, say, `TAB').

If we have a single `home' or `HOME' entry then we invite such problems.
(If we _must_ have a single such entry, I would expect it to point to
the env var.)

We should have similar treatment for the key and the env var, IMO.
E.g., if we have `home directory shorthand' then the key entry should
be something like `home keyboard key'.

And we don't seem to have any entry currently for the env var (?).
Shouldn't a user be able to find some info about it?
`HOME environment variable', for example.

Anyway, I don't have a brilliant solution.  But I noticed a problem.
Maybe you can make some improvement based on this feedback.  If not,
feel free to close the bug.

More recent build where I still see only two entries for `home TAB':

In GNU Emacs 25.0.50.1 (i686-pc-mingw32)
 of 2015-02-27 on LEG570
Repository revision: b2a590d4e3dc692a97c1b53e015b945d84b4b4c7
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