From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: enriched-mode and switching major modes. Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 21:18:18 +0200 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200409042358.i84Nwjt19152@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <87llfn5ihw.fsf@emacswiki.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1095707932 15137 80.91.229.6 (20 Sep 2004 19:18:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 19:18:52 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Oliver Scholz , bob@rattlesnake.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 20 21:18:34 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1C9TgH-0001B7-00 for ; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 21:18:33 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1C9TmA-000882-Ci for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 15:24:38 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1C9Tm4-00087r-5s for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 15:24:32 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1C9Tm3-00087f-N1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 15:24:31 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1C9Tm3-00087V-Hw for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 15:24:31 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.164] (helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1C9Tg5-0003ig-V7 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 15:18:22 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lola.goethe.zz) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1C9Tg2-00050Y-F8; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 15:18:19 -0400 Original-To: Stefan Monnier In-Reply-To: (Stefan Monnier's message of "Mon, 20 Sep 2004 10:55:37 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.3.50 (gnu/linux) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:27337 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:27337 Stefan Monnier writes: > You're trying to strike a balance between WYSIWYG and plain text. > >> The benefit is that you do this while looking at the "surface >> expression". > > With something like WhyzzyTeX I get to edit while seeing (rather > than "looking at") the surface expression. I find that this does not work for most creative work (except fine-tuning the page layout), and there are several reasons for that: the fonts that are used are intended for printing, not the screen. They have visual cues that help for reading at about 600dpi (at that resolution, the hairlines of cm fonts get fine enough not to disturb the leading character of the thicker serifs). The screen can't render that, and antialiasing, while correcting the worst grey level sins, muddies things up at those resolutions. As a result, creating text with TeX fonts interactively is a pain. For running text, I much prefer my 10x20 high contrast, 100dpi-hand-designed pixel font. But while I am creating text, I want to be able to focus my eyes on the text I am entering, not vascillating between text entry and typeset window. I want to be able to focus on one cursor entry position. That's what preview-latex provides me with: terminal fonts where I am interested in the text, antialiased WYSIWYG where I am interested in more complex compositions like math formulas, graphs and similar stuff, where the input representation is so far from the represented content that thinking about the content without visual translation becomes difficult. preview-latex just works on-demand. In contrast X-Symbol works automatically and the deep representation \pm is replaces by =B1 the moment that I type a space or otherwise create a separate token. From that time on, the character in the buffer really _is_ =B1 and not the token \pm. The conversion to tokens is only done when the file is saved or read in. This way of working is inherently dangerous: when things go wrong, your whole file may be en/decoded in some weird coding. Also doing isearch for \pm will not work. With preview-latex, which still has a separate deep representation underlying the graphics, it will. The fine lines when you want to work with deep and surface representation will be different from application to application. --=20 David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum