GNU bug report logs - #58543
29.0.50; The 'q' key is not shown by "C-h ?"

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Message #11 received at 58543 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Philip Kaludercic <philipk <at> posteo.net>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: 58543 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>,
 Stefan Kangas <stefankangas <at> gmail.com>
Subject: Re: bug#58543: 29.0.50; The 'q' key is not shown by "C-h ?"
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2022 10:21:05 +0000

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org> writes:

> Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org> writes:
>
>> As Subject says: "C-h ?" doesn't show the 'q' key, it shows this
>> instead:
>>
>>    M-x help-quick-or-quit 	Display the quick help buffer.
>>
>> This is sub-optimal, I think, and will help users who need this "quick
>> help" less than it could be.
>>
>> Thinking about it, perhaps 'q'; should be on the first line shown by
>> "C-h ?".
>
> Hm...  It's rather confusing all over now.  All the other commands after
> `C-h ?' do the same as typing the commands directly.
>
> That is, `C-h t' shows the Emacs tutorial, and `C-h ? t' does the same.
>
> `C-h q' shows the quick help, but `C-h ? q' doesn't -- it just exits
> `help-for-help'.
>
> But the help-for-help says that it "Display the quick help buffer.",
> which is only correct when you haven't `C-h ?' first.
>
> So this is confusing on several different levels at the same time, and I
> don't know what the best fix here would be.

It was probably wrong to add `help-quick-or-quit' to C-h ? in the first
place.  My proposal to bind C-h q to `help-quick-or-quit' was that "C-h
q" had no effect *outside of* the Metahelp buffer.  But of course, in
the Metahelp buffer "q" does have an effect, that overrides
`help-quick-or-quit'.  My guess is that that is the reason why the
binding is displayed using M-x.

I would therefore remove entry from the "(make-help-screen
help-for-help" block, and consider some other place to mention the quick
help buffer.

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