Emacs developer preferences with respect to emacs binary packages.

Emacs developer preferences with respect to emacs binary packages.

[Rob Browning]

Right now Debian has emacs21 and emacs21-nox packages.  The former
package was compiled --with-x-toolkit=athena, and the later
--with-x=no.  Of course 21.3 now offers GTK support as well, and I
wanted see if you have any preferences with respect to which toolkit
is built as the default.  I'll take any preferences you might have in
consideration as I finish up the new packages.

Thanks

-- 
Rob Browning
rlb @defaultvalue.org, @linuxdevel.com, and @debian.org
Previously @cs.utexas.edu
GPG starting 2002-11-03 = 14DD 432F AE39 534D B592  F9A0 25C8 D377 8C7E 73A4

Re: Emacs developer preferences with respect to emacs binary packages.

[Robert J. Chassell]

    ... and I wanted see if you have any preferences with respect to
    which toolkit is built as the default.  I'll take any preferences
    you might have in consideration ....

As far as I know, the GTK toolkit is still misleading as to the size
of the visible buffer since it does not yet offer underscrolling.  The
display includes post-buffer empty space as if it were within-buffer
whitespace; the GTK toolkit still provides a broken user interface.
So you need to use the native toolkit.

Separate issue:  which window managers do most Debian users use?  Do
some portion of them use KDE or Enlightenment or FVWM?  Would they be
pleased with a GTK toolkit that worked right?  Should you offer
anything for these users and if so what?

-- 
    Robert J. Chassell                         Rattlesnake Enterprises
    http://www.rattlesnake.com                  GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
    http://www.teak.cc                             bob@rattlesnake.com

Re: Emacs developer preferences with respect to emacs binary packages.

[Jason Rumney]

Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:

> Of course 21.3 now offers GTK support as well,

GTK is not in 21.3, but when GTK is released and stable it should be
the Debian users who drive your packaging preferences, not Emacs
developers.  IMHO.

Re: Emacs developer preferences with respect to emacs binary packages.

[Jan D.]

>     ... and I wanted see if you have any preferences with respect to
>     which toolkit is built as the default.  I'll take any preferences
>     you might have in consideration ....
>
> As far as I know, the GTK toolkit is still misleading as to the size
> of the visible buffer since it does not yet offer underscrolling.  The
> display includes post-buffer empty space as if it were within-buffer
> whitespace; the GTK toolkit still provides a broken user interface.

If you consider that broken, the Motif version has been broken a lot
longer, and that hasn't stopped people using Motif.  It may not be up
to your expectations, but that is just an opinion, not something
broken.

But GTK is not in 21.3 as stated in the previous message, only in CVS
head.

	Jan D.

Re: Emacs developer preferences with respect to emacs binary packages.

[Rob Browning]

Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:

> GTK is not in 21.3

Hmm.  Apologies for confusing 21.3 and HEAD -- I forgot which tree I
was working in the other day...

> but when GTK is released and stable it should be the Debian users
> who drive your packaging preferences, not Emacs developers.  IMHO.

Of course, but I'd still like to know what the developers' preferences
are (if any) when making my decisions.

Thanks

-- 
Rob Browning
rlb @defaultvalue.org, @linuxdevel.com, and @debian.org
Previously @cs.utexas.edu
GPG starting 2002-11-03 = 14DD 432F AE39 534D B592  F9A0 25C8 D377 8C7E 73A4

Re: Emacs developer preferences with respect to emacs binary packages.

[Stefan Monnier]

> > but when GTK is released and stable it should be the Debian users
> > who drive your packaging preferences, not Emacs developers.  IMHO.
> 
> Of course, but I'd still like to know what the developers' preferences
> are (if any) when making my decisions.

I'd expect that the developers's preference is largely
reflected in the default that you get when you build
without specifying a particular toolkit (i.e. right now
the preference is `lucid').


	Stefan