Re: Buffers menu question

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> Whether * and % have the same width would be relevant
> if the idea were to use * and % as alternatives in one column.
> However, actually they are used independently.  So the question
> is whether we can find an alternative to * that has the same width
> (in common fonts) as *, and an alternative to % that has the same width
> (in common fonts) as %.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at.  Usually, one displays
either `*' or SPC, followed by `%' or SPC, and the problem that the
widths of `*' and `%' are radically different from that of SPC.

If you could use something besides SPC that was visually undistracting
enough to not be a problem, you could use that as alternative to the SPC
character.  However, it seems certain that you couldn't use the _same_
character as the `SPC alternative' for both `*' and '%' (the width `*'
often seems to be quite narrow, whereas the width of `%' is often very
wide), so this might lead to having a very confusing jumble of
cryptic-looking characters...

Do you have any ideas of possible characters?

-Miles
-- 
"1971 pickup truck; will trade for guns"