Re: Emacs on OS X development

[chad <yandros@gmail.com>]

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On Jul 24, 2012, at 6:04 AM, Pavlo Martynenko wrote:
>> 
> <Screen Shot 2012-07-24 at 12.17.54.png>
> 
> NS port is on the left where the font is narrow and faint. Same font but different frame height. And where is the true brown?

I zoomed in on your screenshot (specifically on the word `This' at the top) and did not see any font differences.  I do see the inter-line spacing being different, and I prefer the NS port version.  It's possible that I could find some if I looked harder.  

Here's a screenshot of the two renderings of `This' side by side.  Can you point out the differences between them, so that we (by which I mostly mean `someone more knowledgable than I') can look into the problems?



I'm not sure what you meant by `true brown', but if you're talking about the info headers being brown on the ns port and red on the mac port, the face uses the color `brown', so I'm not sure that helps.  Do you not see that the red text in the mac port labelled itself `brown'?  Is this a color-perception issue, maybe on my part?

> Btw. Mac Port has more great features. [...] 

Yeah, I understand that there are nifty features in each that would be good to have in both.  I don't think anyone disagrees with that.  Some of them might be tricky to add to the GNU Emacs project, since we try to never make non-Free systems `better' than Free systems, but I think many of the features you're talking about are reasonably thought of as `basic functionality for that system'.  Certainly, modern macosx applications respond to multi-touch gestures and full-screen requests better than the current ns port.


> Yes in slow and bad networks. It looks like after loosing some packets comes problem with C-g, and the only way was to killall -9 Emacs.

Are these network connections made from within emacs, or problems with using emacs over a network connection?  If you can report bugs for these, that would be great.  I don't make much use of emacs network connections these days, but several others do.

>> As far as "ugly" I have no opinion, and haven't noticed font issues or
>> other visual problems. The NS port's functionality has been all right
>> for me, especially keyboard entry, multiprocessing, and networking.
> 
> Did you noticed that NS port is just fine only for those who never tried Mac Port, and those who are not using OS X every day?

As I already mentioned, I use OSX every day, and have been using the ns port for years. I have been trying the mac port frequently, as it developed.  I have never used it for more than a day or two, because it is/was always missing features that the NS port had, and never offered me anything I wanted more than those features. 

I neither doubt nor feel threatened by the existence of people who prefer the mac port. I do say that people who say that the mac port is clearly superior in every way are either confused or wrong, but I also don't think that's interesting - I would much prefer to have the best of both worlds.  For me, saying ``just use the mac port'' is demonstrably NOT the best of both worlds. I'm hopeful that we can get there, especially now that the mac port is closer than ever to the ns port (sadly not close enough for trivial patching, but still pretty close).

Thanks,
*Chad


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