Subject: Re: bug#52870: Is displaying <menu-bar> bindings in describe-function useful?

From: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 12:19:32 -0800

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

> If by b) you mean to push the menu binding to the very end, where it
> will probably not seen at all,

You would only ever need to see it in specific situations.

Furthermore, screens are at least 80x24 ( more these days, I guess) so
we can usually fit the entire documentation on one screen.

> then I don't think that could be the default, either.  Just changing
> the order, so that non-menu bindings are shown first, is okay, I
> think.

That's already the case, AFAICT.  But I might be wrong: I never look at
that line, as I always found it too noisy to read comfortably.

I suspect for many users, that line will be worse than useless, as it is
hardly immediately clear what e.g. "<menu-bar> <help-menu> <describe>
<describe-function>" is even supposed to mean.  It looks like
line-noise.

BTW, it is even worse for describe-function:

    describe-function is an autoloaded interactive compiled Lisp function in
    ‘help-fns.el’.

    It is bound to <menu-bar> <help-menu> <describe> <describe-function>.

We don't even get to see `C-h f' here.

> But banishing that to after the version where the command was
> introduced doesn't sound like something I could agree to by default.

What is your rationale for this?  Is it easier to accept if it is before
the "Probably introduced" line?