Toward a "modern" Emacs

> You can start using it just like Windows Notepad (or a Notepad-like editor like VS Code): open a file by choosing Open File... in the File menu.
I've actually tried this route back in 2006. And quickly discarded it. Back at that time I was already used to a "standard" layout: the project tree in the left and the tabbed editor on the right.

When you open a file in Emacs you get a full screen of it. There are no tabs and navigation between open files (who said "buffers"?) is NOT trivial. And it's a completely different model from everything else.

So basically you HAVE to start with reading the manual and un-learning all the muscle memory. CUA mode doesn't particularly help. As far as I remember, even text selection worked differently (not the usual shift+movement keys).