GNU bug report logs - #32950
27.0.50; Strange display bug in *Help* buffer

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From: Filipp Gunbin <fgunbin <at> fastmail.fm>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 32950 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#32950: 27.0.50; Strange display bug in *Help* buffer
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2018 02:11:06 +0300

Hi,

On 08/10/2018 23:00 +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> From: Filipp Gunbin <fgunbin <at> fastmail.fm>
>> Cc: 32950 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
>> Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2018 18:28:55 +0300
>>
>> > Yes.  This is the intended behavior.  Go to that black line and type
>> > "M-x describe-text-properties RET": you will see what it tries to do.
>> > Also try the same on a GUI frame.
>>
>> I see these text props there:
>>
>>   face                 (:height 0.1 :inverse-video t)
>>
>> Yes, it's inverse-video, but it does not provide an explanation.
>
> I'm not sure I follow: explanation for what?  The ":height 0.1" part
> is supposed to explain that the intent is to display a thin horizontal
> line, except that TTY frames don't support variable-height lines, so
> you see a normal-height line there in inverse video.

Explanation for why it's there, in the first place.  Ok, it's thin in
GUI, but it's very prominent on TTY.

>> Anyway, it looks somewhat scary for an unprepared user.  Why don't we
>> just show usual help for variable/function separately, and make this
>> "list"?
>
> I'm sure that whoever coded this thought it to be a very coll feature,
> so all I can advise is to get used to it.
>
>> I doubt that even experienced users know about this feature.
>
> Well, I, for one, do.
>
> Not every surprising feature should be an immediate candidate for
> removal.

I'm sure on GUI it serves its purpose well, when it's really thin line.
But on TTY, as I already wrote, nothing except "what happened?" comes to
(my) mind.  When you are accustomed to the usual behavior of Help
buffers to replace contents when following a link, this special-case
adding is really confusing.

Well, now I know about it too, so it's not a problem for me.  I was
thinking of others, who may as well file a bug about it, and maintainers
will spend time responding to it.  Yes, this seems to be a rare case -
for example, the reverse reference (from variable proced-sort to
function) is not there, but still.

Thanks.

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