Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 17:12:23 +0300 (IDT)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Chris Croughton <crough45 AT amc DOT de>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Info (was The DJGPP Oracle)
In-Reply-To: <97Aug18.155011gmt+0100.17231@internet01.amc.de>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970818170138.17172b-100000@is>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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On Mon, 18 Aug 1997, Chris Croughton wrote:

> For me it's not "getting started".  A large part of the annoyance
> is indeed the user interface - it's a load of obscure keys, half of
> which don't do anything like what I expect 

Well, expectation is obviously a matter of personal taste and learning 
how to use the tool.

>  And searching it is
> a pain - with man|less I just do / and then the RE to search for,
> and it searches the whole thing.

I don't get this one.  Doesn't the `s' (for `search') command do this for
you in Info? 

> The other real pain I notice is the command-line interface.  With man
> I just type 
> 
>   $ man strcpy
> 
> and it finds it (occasionally I have to specify the section, as a
> single digit after 'man'), with info it's some arcane set of flags.

Don't get this one, either.  I usually type "info gcc" and that's all.  
What ``arcane set of flags'' are you talking about?

> (Note: I generally am not a fan of hyperlinked databases.  They are
> sometimes useful, but the lack of global search, and having to follow
> links instead of just paging down, and the difficulty of printing them
> as a whole, make them not 'friendly' as far as I'm concerned.

You lost me on these also.  ``Lack of global search''?  What's wrong with 
the `s' command?  ``Having to follow links''?  If you just press Space 
time and again (which should be familiar, since you use `less'), Info 
will go through all the sections and subsections in sequence, making a 
depth-first search.  If you don't like hyperlinks, then don't use them.

> (Sorry, Eli, but I use vi (in fact vim) in preference to emacs.

Why sorry?  I don't have any money invested in Emacs, and I don't ask 
others to like the tools that I do.  If vim is what you like, go ahead 
and use it.  Gesundheit!