Subject: bug#40457: 26.3; A little Help from `list-packages'?

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2020 14:18:49 -0700 (PDT)

The doc string of `list-packages', and `C-h m' in the list it provides,
don't really tell you what actions you can perform there.  There is not
much, if any, help for this buffer, that I can see.

So I look at its menu-bar `Package' menu.  OK, I can guess a bit what
some of the menu items do.  But perhaps the most important action (?),
"Install", isn't even described anywere, AFAICT.

I see that only as the text of a button in the *Help* buffer content
from describing a package (`RET', `package-menu-describe').  I find no
description of what that "Install" button does.

And in the packages list I find no key binding for installing the
package of the current line or the marked packages, when I look at the
*Help* of `C-h m' - nothing that talks about installing.

Well, I do see that there's `i' (`package-menu-mark-install ') to mark
a package for installation, and there's `x' (`package-menu-execute' to
install the packages marked for installation.  But does `x' install the
package on the current line if no lines are marked?  (That's the way
Dired actions work, at least.)

But suppose I want to just download a package - its source files, and I
don't want to "install" it (especially since I have no way of knowing
what "installing" actually will do).  How to do that - download the
marked packages?  How to find out how to do it?  This is I guess my main
question for this bug report.

Also, using `d' on a line for a package that's not installed doesn't
mark it at all.  Why is that correct - no visual feedback?  If the point
is to tell you that it can't be marked for deletion then why is there no
message saying that?  And shouldn't it be marked anyway, and then have
`x' tell you that it can't be deleted - e.g., because it's not
installed?  Wouldn't that tell you more than what `d' does now?

(emacs) `Package Menu' helps.  But the buffer itself (and its menu and
help commands) should provide better help.

In GNU Emacs 26.3 (build 1, x86_64-w64-mingw32)
 of 2019-08-29
Repository revision: 96dd0196c28bc36779584e47fffcca433c9309cd
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.18362
Configured using:
 `configure --without-dbus --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32
 --without-compress-install 'CFLAGS=-O2 -static -g3''