Subject: bug#37078: 27.0.50; Proposal: new introductory section to the Gnus manual

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 20:43:23 +0300

> From: Eric Abrahamsen <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked],  [email-masked]
> Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 09:59:14 -0700
> 
> > Most of this section should be under the "Composing Messages" chapter,
> > IMO.
> 
> We had a bit of discussion on gnus.general about this. My feeling is
> that Gnus has a "how do I exit vim" problem: people start it up, can't
> figure out why they can't see their email, bang on the keyboard a bit,
> then rage quit. I figured it would only take a tiny bit of information
> to fix that: the fact that Gnus hides read groups/articles by default,
> and the ~eight commands necessary to do basic maneuvering. Other people
> felt it was weird to combine conceptual overviews with a handful of
> keybindings, and I can understand that. But I really meant this section
> to be "get to usability in 20 minutes".
> 
> But you're right that the three fetching/reading/sending sections
> shouldn't be there (the fact that I was getting chapter name collisions
> should have been a clue). I'll check the existing sections and see if
> they can be made to provide an easier on-ramp, then just link to those.

The introduction you wrote can mention the main points briefly, and
then have a cross-reference to where the commands are described in
full.  That way, both those who don't know "how to exit vim" will find
what they need (and can follow the cross-reference to read the rest),
and those who read the relevant chapter will have this information
spelled out.