Re: Some findings and suggestion about Emacs on w32

[storm@cua.dk (Kim F. Storm)]

"Lennart Borgman" <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se> writes:

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Kim F. Storm" <storm@cua.dk>
>
> : Once you have started emacs (from the start menu), what business do
> : you have outside emacs (i.e. in Windoze land)?
>
> Of course you have a point there, but why not have the freedom of working
> different ways? Does not that make the learning curve less steep? I have
> seen people hesitating to begin using Emacs just because there is too much
> to learn to begin with. If we want people to use Emacs I think we should
> make it as easy as possible to begin. They will learn more after a while.

I don't understand.  How does gnuclient make emacs easier to learn ?

I definitely think GNU Emacs should be on the start menu -- 

If emacs/gnuclient is included, your installer may offer to make file
associations in the registry for e.g. *.el *.c *.h.

>
> Another trouble with this menu entry: What will happen if you start Emacs a
> second time from that Start menu entry?

You get a second instance of emacs -- that's perfectly legal and may be useful
if you need a separate thread for some things (like gnus).

There is a problem if you start the server in .emacs; does the first
or second instance run the server ?  I don't know if there is a
generic answer to that question.

> BTW the name of the entry is "GNU Emacs". I thought that just "Emacs" was
> preferred?

Right -- but mentioning GNU explicitly on the windoze start menu is a
nice thing to do to remind users about "the issues", so IMO we should
keep it there.

> Can you tell me more about emacsserver/emacsclient? Does it work like
> gnuserv or are there big differences?

A major difference is that in CVS emacs, emacsserver is now INTERNAL
written in ELisp via make-network-process.  I.e. only emacsclient is
an external program.

AFAIK emacsclient uses a local unix socket, gnuclient uses a mailslot.

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk