pbm files and elisp manual

pbm files and elisp manual

[Nick Roberts]

Having *almost* installed my changes for gud.el and gdb-ui.el correctly, I've
got the following questions :

1) I've also installed a set of 12 XPM image files in emacs/lisp/toolbar whose 
   names are all prefixed with gud. I see that all the xpm files have a pbm 
   counterpart. I don't know why they are needed (do people really have
   binary displays ?) and presume these are generated from the xpm files.
   Can someone please either install the pbm counterparts for me or explain
   how to do it (whichever is easier) ?

2) I found the elisp manual invaluable in writing gdb-ui.el. Could a section
   for the functions in button.el (e.g define-button-type, insert-text-button
   etc.) be added as these seem to be of general interest ?
 
Nick

Re: pbm files and elisp manual

[Oliver Scholz]

Nick Roberts <nick@nick.uklinux.net> writes:

> Having *almost* installed my changes for gud.el and gdb-ui.el correctly, I've
> got the following questions :
>

>  1) I've also installed a set of 12 XPM image files in
>     emacs/lisp/toolbar whose names are all prefixed with gud. I see
>     that all the xpm files have a pbm counterpart. I don't know why
>     they are needed (do people really have binary displays ?) 

When black & white displays where discussed w.r.t. gamegrid.el, it was
pointed out that there may indeed still be a few people who use such
displays.

Besides that, as things stand currently, Emacs may be compiled without
support for XPM images. The PBMs are a fall-back then.

>  and presume these are generated from the xpm files.

I don't know for sure, but I really doubt that. The XPM in
lisp/toolbar/ do not contain any information for mono displays, the
PBMs OTOH are obviously cleaned up carefully.

>  Can someone please either install the pbm counterparts for me or
>  explain how to do it (whichever is easier) ?

You could convert the XPMs from the command line with the Netpbm tools
<URL: http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/>. I have not looked at your
icons, but converting colour images to black&white has a big chance to
result into ugly images that are hard to recognize. So I guess they
would need some manual clean-up.

    Oliver
-- 
Oliver Scholz               25 Brumaire an 211 de la Révolution
Taunusstr. 25               Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!
60329 Frankfurt a. M.       http://www.jungdemokratenhessen.de
Tel. (069) 97 40 99 42      http://www.jdjl.org

Re: pbm files and elisp manual

[Robert J. Chassell]

alkibiades@gmx.de wrote:

   >     ... I see
   >     that all the xpm files have a pbm counterpart. I don't know why
   >     they are needed (do people really have binary displays ?) 

People run Emacs on impoverished hardware.  Or they work remotely over
communications lines running at 150 baud.  One of the great advantages
of Emacs is that it discriminates less than other programs.  You can
use GNU Emacs to work in difficult circumstances.

-- 
    Robert J. Chassell                         Rattlesnake Enterprises
    http://www.rattlesnake.com                  GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
    http://www.teak.cc                             bob@rattlesnake.com

Re: pbm files and elisp manual

[Nick Roberts]

Robert J. Chassell writes:

 >    >     ... I see
 >    >     that all the xpm files have a pbm counterpart. I don't know why
 >    >     they are needed (do people really have binary displays ?) 
 > 
 > People run Emacs on impoverished hardware.  Or they work remotely over
 > communications lines running at 150 baud.  One of the great advantages
 > of Emacs is that it discriminates less than other programs.  You can
 > use GNU Emacs to work in difficult circumstances.

At 150 baud I would have thought people would stick to text and not use
images. 

Anyway, trying to be pragmatic about it, I've created and installed some pbm
files. If anyone who has compiled emacs without support for XPM images and/or
uses pbm icons finds them unsuitable then please feel free to edit them.

Nick

Re: pbm files and elisp manual

[Robert J. Chassell]

nick@nick.uklinux.net wrote;

   At 150 baud I would have thought people would stick to text and not use
   images. 

Yes, you are right.  My point is that it is really important that
Emacs work under all sorts of conditions, not only the good ones.

Even someone like me who mostly works with Emacs on the local machine,
which is fast, sometimes has to work over a slow connection.  Usually
my slow connections are faster than 150 baud, but I often run Emacs
remotely with connections at 9600 baud.

-- 
    Robert J. Chassell                         Rattlesnake Enterprises
    http://www.rattlesnake.com                  GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
    http://www.teak.cc                             bob@rattlesnake.com

Re: pbm files and elisp manual

[Richard Stallman]

    2) I found the elisp manual invaluable in writing gdb-ui.el. Could a section
       for the functions in button.el (e.g define-button-type, insert-text-button
       etc.) be added as these seem to be of general interest ?

Miles, you worked on them--could you write about them?