Re: PGTK-related misconceptions

[Jim Porter <jporterbugs@gmail.com>]

On 4/17/2022 10:57 PM, Po Lu wrote:
> Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> writes:
> 
>> It recommends it /for/ using alternative window systems, not /only for/
>> using alternative window systems, so far as I can tell.  For example
>>
>>      With the PGTK build, you will be able to switch between running
>>      Emacs on X, Wayland and Broadway using the 'GDK_BACKEND' environment
>>      variable.
>>
>> really makes it sound like it's find to use it if you're using only X.
> 
> I don't see a difference between "for" and "only for" in this case,
> because above the section talking about PGTK (and also in the details
> below) is a large amount of commentary discussing the regular X build.

Reading through these sections of INSTALL, I found it very easy to 
assume that PGTK was a direct upgrade that would just let me "switch 
between running Emacs on X, Wayland and Broadway". An extremely-careful 
reader might then wonder why "--with-pgtk" isn't enabled by default on 
systems with the necessary dependencies, but that only *implies* that 
there are downsides to PGTK rather than stating it.

I think it would be best to state explicitly that there are problems 
with the PGTK build, though INSTALL probably doesn't need to go into any 
more detail than that. In practice, a lot of people will probably just 
skim the documentation, so they might miss some of the more subtle 
points unless they're very clearly called out.