Subject: bug#65288: 30.0.50; Make Type: annotation optional in *Help* buffers

From: Andrea Corallo <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2023 06:11:20 -0400

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

>> Cc: [email-masked]
>> From: Visuwesh <[email-masked]>
>> Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2023 20:47:31 +0530
>> 
>> [திங்கள் ஆகஸ்ட் 14, 2023] Philip Kaludercic wrote:
>> 
>> > Visuwesh <[email-masked]> writes:
>> >
>> >> Can a user option be added to not show the "Type:" annotation in *Help*
>> >> buffers for certain functions?  An example is `char-after'
>> >>
>> >>     char-after is a built-in function in ‘src/editfns.c’.
>> >>
>> >>     (char-after &optional POS) Type: (function (&optional (or marker
>> >>     integer)) (or null (integer -2305843009213693952
>> >>     2305843009213693951)))
>> >>
>> >>     Return character in current buffer at position POS.
>> >>     POS is an integer or a marker and defaults to point.
>> >>     If POS is out of range, the value is nil.
>> >>
>> >> If not a user option, can it be moved after the docstring?
>> >
>> > Only functions have types, these are not the same types those given to
>> > user options.
>> 
>> There's no confusion about user option type and function argument type
>> but this info crowds the second line which only contained the function
>> signature before.  Other extra info are at the bottom of the buffer so
>> moving it there would be more consistent too.
>> 
>> > That being said, I agree that in cases like `char-after' the information
>> > of a very specific type like that one is limited.  I don't know if there
>> > is a sensible heuristic to reformat the type into something like
>> >
>> >   (function (&optional position) (or position null))
>> >
>> > using some kind of type aliasing, but it might be better to not
>> > highlight the information so prominently?
>
> Andrea, would it make sense to introduce an option which could disable
> showing this information in *Help*?

Hi Eli,

sure why not, something like `help-enable-function-type'?

Thanks

  Andrea