Re: Android port of Emacs

[Stefan Monnier via "Emacs development discussions." <emacs-devel@gnu.org>]

> Indeed.  There is another data point that should, I believe, be mentioned:
> users who want to run Emacs on an Android device can already do so, with
> both its TUI and GUI, without any changes whatsoever on the Emacs side. See
> for instance this five years old Reddit post:
> https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/9m76ak/termux_package_emacsx/. That
> post mentions the "XServer XSDL" X server; a year later the Termux folks
> started the development of their own X server implementation for Android,
> Termux:X11.

FWIW, I tried to use that but found it unbearable.  I can't remember all
the annoyances, but there were many, and AFAIK there is no way for *us*
to fix them.

I do encourage people to contribute to the "X server on Android" to try
and make the X11 build of Emacs usable on Android, but seeing how even
the native X11 server's own maintenance is lacking manpower I wouldn't
hold my breath.  I also suspect that no matter how hard we/they work at
it, it'll never work really well simply because of the "impedance
mismatch" between the Android APIs and X11's.

IOW, I think the Termux approach will inevitably remain a crutch.
It's been a handy crutch in the absence of a real Android port, but the
Android port offers a much better user experience, and should make it
possible to write Emacs packages that are actually pleasant to use on
a smartphone.


        Stefan