From: Christopher Croughton Message-Id: <97Aug18.175304gmt+0100.17028@internet01.amc.de> Subject: Re: Info (was The DJGPP Oracle) To: eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il (Eli Zaretskii) Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 16:58:03 +0100 Cc: crough45 AT amc DOT de, djgpp AT delorie DOT com In-Reply-To: from "Eli Zaretskii" at Aug 18, 97 03:12:23 pm Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Precedence: bulk Eli Zaretskii wrote: > Well, expectation is obviously a matter of personal taste and learning > how to use the tool. And info isn't even customisable. > > 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? Does it? How about backwards? How about 'n' and 'N' to repeat the search ('N' reverses the search order)? How about maintaining a list of what has been searched for (in less I can do '/' then scroll through the list of things I've searched for and re-search or change them)? How about highlighting the string I've found? Info feels to me as though it was intended to use with a mouse and the keyboard interface was an after thought. That may not be true, and I've never used it with a mouse (I don't have a mouse driver installed), but it's the impression I get. > Don't get this one, either. I usually type "info gcc" and that's all. > What ``arcane set of flags'' are you talking about? -f some_file - info finds the term with plain "info xxx" if and only if the info files are linked into its database. Otherwise you have to specify the file. > You lost me on these also. ``Lack of global search''? What's wrong with > the `s' command? It doesn't work on any web browser I've seen. Note I said "hyperlink databases in general", not just info - the majority have no global search, they only search within one 'page'. I was pointing out that I'm not exactly an impartial critic, because the paradigm is alien to my way of thinking. Therefore, take criticisms from me on the subject as being something less than the Word of God(tm) ... > ``Having to follow links''? If you just press Space > time and again (which should be familiar, since you use `less'), How about page down and page up, and the cursor arrows? I don't just want to go down. > 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. As I said, I don't. I convert info files to flat text. Unfortunately with most hyperlink stuff I don't have that choice, because it's either encoded (Windows help files and the like) or the only information is in the links (HTML stuff). > > (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! Well, actually more apologies to those who have put in the effort writing the thing I suppose. They like it. Other people don't like the interfaces to the utilities I write, often, because I like things which are easy to type (and yes, that means "obscure flags" but at least they're /my/ obscure flags ) rather than being flashy... (And I don't like GUIs. Give me a command line - or preferably a dozen or so command lines - anyday...) Chris C