Seems like a good idea. Thanks.

Before I go ahead with a PR... I wonder if there's a better phrasing/letter for the second option. (j)oin seems sensible, but "load" is a pretty generic word -- in context, "[web] browser" is really the key part of load link with browser.

OTOH (M-x browse-url notwithstanding) web browsers are "browsing" the web collectively, not "browsing" individual URLs, so (b)rowse doesn't work to my mind either. Firefox and Chromium both use the terminology "Open URL" (and even Emacs sometimes uses "open" in its menus, whereas "load" is something quite different in Emacs); so maybe (o)pen link in web browser works slightly better.

Or Open link in web (b)rowser; or Open link in (w)eb browser. My initial feeling was that it seems preferable to use the first letter of the first word as the active character, but I'm less convinced of that now.

Room not joined on current session. (j)oin it, or (l)oad link with browser?
Room not joined on current session. (j)oin it, or (o)pen link with browser?
Room not joined on current session. (j)oin it, or open link with (b)rowser?
Room not joined on current session. (j)oin it, or open link with (w)eb browser?
Room not joined on current session. (j)oin it, or (b)rowse url?

I admit there's a succinct and familiar ring to the last one, despite my earlier comments, but I don't have a single firm favourite, and there might be something else which is better than those.

What do you think?

"View with browser?" "Visit with browser?" I don't know if those are necessarily better than "open", "load", or "browse", but maybe worth considering.

Whatever the phrasing, it looks like read-multiple-choice provides a nicer implementation than read-answer (both were added in Emacs 26).

(read-multiple-choice
 "Room not joined on current session."
 '((?j "join" "Join room in ement.el")
   (?w "web browser" "Open URL in web browser")))

...and because I was experimenting, a fancier (but probably unnecessary) version help-wise:

(let* ((help-format "\
You are not currently joined to that room.  You can either join the room
in ement.el, or visit the link URL in your web browser.\n\n%s")
       (prompt-choices '((?j "join" "Join room in ement.el")
                         (?w "web browser" "Open URL in web browser")))
       (help-choices (mapconcat (lambda (c)
                                  (format "%c: %s\n" (car c) (caddr c)))
                                prompt-choices)))
  (read-multiple-choice "Room not joined on current session."
                        prompt-choices
                        (format help-format help-choices)))

Sure, I think that's fine. Maybe say "in Emacs" rather than "in ement.el"?

Sure thing. For clarity, did you want the more basic version or the one with the fancier help?

Sure thing. For clarity, did you want the more basic version or the one with the fancier help?

I'm comfortable with deferring to your judgment on that. Since I'm the original developer and you're also a user, your perspective may be more important than mine.

@phil-s If you're still interested, I'll be glad to merge a PR for this without delay. It doesn't seem like something that needs much testing first.

Let's leave it for 0.15. I can't do a PR immediately, and it's a minor thing.

I quite like the verbose help, and I also think the default multi-column help formatting seems awkward in the way in which it wraps lines, so here's a wrapper which resolves those things.

(defun ement-read-multiple-choice (prompt choices &optional help)
  "Wrapper for `read-multiple-choice'."
  (let ((help-format (if help
                         (concat (replace-regexp-in-string "%" "%%" help)
                                 "\n\n%s")
                       "%s"))
        (help-choices (mapconcat (lambda (c)
                                   (format "%c: %s\n" (car c) (caddr c)))
                                 choices)))
    (read-multiple-choice prompt choices
                          (format help-format help-choices))))

(cl-case (car (ement-read-multiple-choice
               "Room not joined on current session."
               '((?j "join" "Join room in ement.el")
                 (?w "web browser" "Open URL in web browser"))
               "\
You are not currently joined to that room.  You can either join the room
in ement.el, or visit the link URL in your web browser."))
  (?j 'join-it)
  (?w 'browse-it))

I've just realised that the "load link with browser" browse-url call here has always resulted in a recursive call to this function :)

I'll fix that while I'm at it...

Thanks for your work and your patience!