Re: master 5ec2115: Use '…' for ellipsis in truncate-string-to-width by default (bug#41250)

Re: master 5ec2115: Use '…' for ellipsis in truncate-string-to-width by default (bug#41250)

[Herbert J. Skuhra]

On Sun, 04 Oct 2020 21:41:59 +0200, Juri Linkov wrote:
> 
> branch: master
> commit 5ec21155c39aab8a452d190a260e6912d1d9a920
> Author: Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net>
> Commit: Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net>
> 
>     Use '…' for ellipsis in truncate-string-to-width by default (bug#41250)
>     
>     * lisp/international/mule-util.el (truncate-string-ellipsis):
>     Change the default value to nil.
>     (truncate-string-ellipsis): New function.
>     (truncate-string-to-width): Use the value returned from the
>     function 'truncate-string-ellipsis'.
>     
>     * lisp/tab-bar.el (tab-bar-tab-name-truncated):
>     * lisp/tab-line.el (tab-line-tab-name-ellipsis):
>     Take advantage of the improvement of the ellipsis default value
>     in truncate-string-to-width and truncate-string-ellipsis.
>     
>     * doc/lispref/display.texi (Size of Displayed Text):
>     Improve description of truncate-string-ellipsis.
> ---
>  doc/lispref/display.texi        |  3 ++-
>  etc/NEWS                        |  6 ++++++
>  lisp/international/mule-util.el | 21 +++++++++++++++++----
>  lisp/tab-bar.el                 | 10 +++-------
>  lisp/tab-line.el                |  3 +--
>  5 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)

Hi,

after this commit I can no longer do a clean build:

% git clean -xfd
% ./autogen.sh
% ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/emacs --with-x-toolkit=lucid --with-mailutils
% make

  GEN      ../lisp/leim/ja-dic/ja-dic.el
  INFO     Processing OKURI-ARI entries
  INFO     Processing POSTFIX entries
Loading macroexp.elc...
Invalid read syntax: "?"
make[3]: *** [Makefile:143: ../lisp/leim/ja-dic/ja-dic.el] Error 255
make[3]: Leaving directory '/home/herbert/source/emacs/leim'
make[2]: *** [Makefile:352: leim] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/herbert/source/emacs/lisp'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:794: ../lisp/loaddefs.el] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/herbert/source/emacs/src'
make: *** [Makefile:424: src] Error 2

--
Herbert

Re: master 5ec2115: Use '…' for ellipsis in truncate-string-to-width by default (bug#41250)

[Juri Linkov]

> after this commit I can no longer do a clean build:
>
> % git clean -xfd
> % ./autogen.sh
> % ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/emacs --with-x-toolkit=lucid --with-mailutils
> % make
>
>   GEN      ../lisp/leim/ja-dic/ja-dic.el
>   INFO     Processing OKURI-ARI entries
>   INFO     Processing POSTFIX entries
> Loading macroexp.elc...
> Invalid read syntax: "?"
> make[3]: *** [Makefile:143: ../lisp/leim/ja-dic/ja-dic.el] Error 255
> make[3]: Leaving directory '/home/herbert/source/emacs/leim'
> make[2]: *** [Makefile:352: leim] Error 2
> make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/herbert/source/emacs/lisp'
> make[1]: *** [Makefile:794: ../lisp/loaddefs.el] Error 2
> make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/herbert/source/emacs/src'
> make: *** [Makefile:424: src] Error 2

The problem is that the source file mule-util.el can't use the Unicode
character '…'.  Please see http://debbugs.gnu.org/41250 for the discussion.

This is fixed now.

Re: master 5ec2115: Use '…' for ellipsis in truncate-string-to-width by default (bug#41250)

[Herbert J. Skuhra]

On Tue, Oct 06, 2020 at 10:58:32AM +0300, Juri Linkov wrote:
> > after this commit I can no longer do a clean build:
> >
> > % git clean -xfd
> > % ./autogen.sh
> > % ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/emacs --with-x-toolkit=lucid --with-mailutils
> > % make
> >
> >   GEN      ../lisp/leim/ja-dic/ja-dic.el
> >   INFO     Processing OKURI-ARI entries
> >   INFO     Processing POSTFIX entries
> > Loading macroexp.elc...
> > Invalid read syntax: "?"
> > make[3]: *** [Makefile:143: ../lisp/leim/ja-dic/ja-dic.el] Error 255
> > make[3]: Leaving directory '/home/herbert/source/emacs/leim'
> > make[2]: *** [Makefile:352: leim] Error 2
> > make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/herbert/source/emacs/lisp'
> > make[1]: *** [Makefile:794: ../lisp/loaddefs.el] Error 2
> > make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/herbert/source/emacs/src'
> > make: *** [Makefile:424: src] Error 2
> 
> The problem is that the source file mule-util.el can't use the Unicode
> character '…'.  Please see http://debbugs.gnu.org/41250 for the discussion.
> 
> This is fixed now.

Thanks. But now I get:

Loading macroexp.elc...
Invalid read syntax: "\\N{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS}"
make[3]: *** [../lisp/leim/ja-dic/ja-dic.el] Error 255
make[2]: *** [leim] Error 2
make[1]: *** [../lisp/loaddefs.el] Error 2
make: *** [src] Error 2

-- 
Herbert

Re: master 5ec2115: Use '…' for ellipsis in truncate-string-to-width by default (bug#41250)

[Stefan Monnier]

> The problem is that the source file mule-util.el can't use the Unicode
> character '…'.

Yes, it can.  It's some other code which messes things up.


        Stefan

RE: master 5ec2115: Use '…' for ellipsis in truncate-string-to-width by default (bug#41250)

[Drew Adams]

> The problem is that the source file mule-util.el can't use the Unicode
> character '…'.  Please see
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://debbugs.gnu.org/41250__;!!GqivPVa7Brio!Myw
> 9NLEyEGq9q15InHIL4DosZcvKPlrhRBDjGAthnl2obqktBvxncP_YLpQWXegw$  for the
> discussion.

FWIW, in that bug (#41250) thread, I expressed 
the opinion about the ellipsis that we should
use "..." and not "…", which is not so readable.

The ellipsis is used to indicate truncation.
By using "..." we include two more chars, but
it suffices to truncate two additional chars,
to end with the same width of text.  (And users
can control the max width by an option.)

https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=41250#144

That opinion was ignored, and instead hoops were
jumped through to try to use "…".  IMO, not only
is it not worth trying to do that, the result,
if successful, is worse.

That "…" char is pretty useless, in general.
Its appearance has nothing in common with that
of a real ellipsis, at least when a fixed-width
font is used.

Re: master 5ec2115: Use '…' for ellipsis in truncate-string-to-width by default (bug#41250)

[Stefan Monnier]

> That "…" char is pretty useless, in general.
> Its appearance has nothing in common with that
> of a real ellipsis, at least when a fixed-width
> font is used.

FWIW, I've been using "…" for that ellipsis for a long time now, and
I use a fixed-width font (misc-fixed-semicondensed) pretty
much everywhere.  So obviously my opinion disagrees with yours.

I did end up using "……" at a few places (mostly for the
outline-minor-mode ellipses), tho, because while I find "..." too long,
"…" ended up a bit too short for my taste in that case.

For `truncate-string-to-width` (which is also used to truncate elements
which are significantly shorter than a line's width (contrary to the
outline-minor-mode ellipses) typically in multi-column tabular data),
I found the extra 2 chars very welcome.


        Stefan

RE: master 5ec2115: Use '…' for ellipsis in truncate-string-to-width by default (bug#41250)

[Drew Adams]

> > That "…" char is pretty useless, in general.
> > Its appearance has nothing in common with that
> > of a real ellipsis, at least when a fixed-width
> > font is used.
> 
> FWIW, I've been using "…" for that ellipsis for a long time now, and
> I use a fixed-width font (misc-fixed-semicondensed) pretty
> much everywhere.  So obviously my opinion disagrees with yours.
> 
> I did end up using "……" at a few places (mostly for the
> outline-minor-mode ellipses), tho, because while I find "..." too long,
> "…" ended up a bit too short for my taste in that case.
> 
> For `truncate-string-to-width` (which is also used to truncate elements
> which are significantly shorter than a line's width (contrary to the
> outline-minor-mode ellipses) typically in multi-column tabular data),
> I found the extra 2 chars very welcome.

OK.

There's an argument for users to be able to customize
the string, beyond just the overall length/width.