doc/emacs/mule.texi questions

doc/emacs/mule.texi questions

[Glenn Morris]

Some questions prompted by doc/emacs/mule.texi:

1.
mule.texi says:
  
   The default fontset is most likely to have fonts for a wide variety of
   non-@acronym{ASCII} characters

However, C-h v standard-fontset-spec says:

  You have the biggest chance to display international characters with
  correct glyphs by using the standard fontset

Which is correct?


2. Is this still true?

    But be careful not to specify a fontset name in a wildcard resource
    like @samp{Emacs*Font}---that wildcard specification matches various
    other resources, such as for menus, and menus cannot handle fontsets.
                                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

3. Is this still true?

    Note particularly that you probably want to ensure that your
    initialization files are read as unibyte if they contain
    non-@acronym{ASCII} characters.

Re: doc/emacs/mule.texi questions

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
> Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:25:12 -0400
> 
> 3. Is this still true?
> 
>     Note particularly that you probably want to ensure that your
>     initialization files are read as unibyte if they contain
>     non-@acronym{ASCII} characters.

No.

Re: doc/emacs/mule.texi questions

[Jason Rumney]

Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> writes:

> Some questions prompted by doc/emacs/mule.texi:
>
> 1.
> mule.texi says:
>   
>    The default fontset is most likely to have fonts for a wide variety of
>    non-@acronym{ASCII} characters
>
> However, C-h v standard-fontset-spec says:
>
>   You have the biggest chance to display international characters with
>   correct glyphs by using the standard fontset
>
> Which is correct?

I think standard-fontset-spec is a leftover from Emacs 22 before a font
backend existed that could automatically sort through the fonts
available on the user's system. This fontset spec was designed to match
the fonts in the GNU intlfonts package.  The default fontset is probably
a leftover too, Emacs displays most international characters out of the
box now whether you specify a fontset or just a simple font. 


> 2. Is this still true?
>
>     But be careful not to specify a fontset name in a wildcard resource
>     like @samp{Emacs*Font}---that wildcard specification matches various
>     other resources, such as for menus, and menus cannot handle fontsets.
>                                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yes, at least when Emacs uses toolkit menus, which probably covers more
than 90% of installations these days.  I'm not sure if GTK menus are
affected by such specifications though, Windows and NS menus certainly
are not.


> 3. Is this still true?
>
>     Note particularly that you probably want to ensure that your
>     initialization files are read as unibyte if they contain
>     non-@acronym{ASCII} characters.

No, this is very out of date advice. Mule was stable enough to use in
elisp files by 20.3 at latest.

Re: doc/emacs/mule.texi questions

[Glenn Morris]

Jason Rumney wrote:

> I think standard-fontset-spec is a leftover from Emacs 22 before a font
> backend existed that could automatically sort through the fonts
> available on the user's system. This fontset spec was designed to match
> the fonts in the GNU intlfonts package.  The default fontset is probably
> a leftover too, Emacs displays most international characters out of the
> box now whether you specify a fontset or just a simple font. 

I know very little about fontsets (so it would be great if someone other
than me would proof-read this part of the manual...), but reading those
parts of mule.texi I got the general impression that some of it seems
old.

For example, the GNU intlfonts tarfile is 9 years old. Does anyone still
need to install that, as opposed to just their distribution's font
packages for international characters?

The installation instructions (in mule.texi) refer to "xset fp+". I
guess (?) that still works, but aren't fontconfig files the way to do
that nowadays?

The fontsets docs refer mainly to the old-style font specs like

   -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-standard

I still use those, but I get the impression that most people have moved
on to things like "DejaVu Sans Mono-12" instead. There is little mention
of that in mule.texi.

> No, this is very out of date advice. Mule was stable enough to use in
> elisp files by 20.3 at latest.

Many things related to unibyte were declared obsolete.
Should the "unibyte: t" spec (meaning, load or compile this file of Lisp
code in unibyte mode) be another?

Re: doc/emacs/mule.texi questions

[Glenn Morris]

Glenn Morris wrote:

> Many things related to unibyte were declared obsolete.
> Should the "unibyte: t" spec (meaning, load or compile this file of Lisp
> code in unibyte mode) be another?

The fact that this was suggested 6+ years ago makes me think it should...

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2004-11/msg00577.html

Re: doc/emacs/mule.texi questions

[Stefan Monnier]

> Many things related to unibyte were declared obsolete.
> Should the "unibyte: t" spec be another?

Yes.


        Stefan

Re: doc/emacs/mule.texi questions

[Glenn Morris]

Stefan Monnier wrote:

>> Many things related to unibyte were declared obsolete.
>> Should the "unibyte: t" spec be another?
>
> Yes.

What is the replacement? Nothing, coding:, something else?

Re: doc/emacs/mule.texi questions

[Stefan Monnier]

>>> Many things related to unibyte were declared obsolete.
>>> Should the "unibyte: t" spec be another?
>> Yes.
> What is the replacement? Nothing, coding:, something else?

"coding: binary".


        Stefan