Re: Grep and font-lock

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     That's actually what I suggested: font-lock does not only set
>     faces.  compile.el uses it to set faces (which have no other
>     purpose than aesthetic) and to set crucial meta info.  So you
>     can't just plain turn off font-lock because it would break grep,
>     but we could add some option to font-lock so you can have it ON
>     without any of the visual effects.
> 
> When a mode uses the font-lock mechanism to put on other properties,
> turning font-lock mode on and off should have no effect on that.
> Turning font-lock mode on and off should only affect the faces.
> 
> If this is not how it works now, let's change it.

Definitely.  Since compile has changed, I get occasional colors
appearing here and there randomly.  I find that annoying.  I want my
font lock to stay turned off.

That being said, I think we should change the default of font-lock to
"on": new users consider it a great and helpful feature and are used
to getting it from their editors and on relying on this sort of syntax
analysis.

This will not change that I will keep font lock turned off on my
Emacs, but it is easier for me to turn it off than for a new user to
turn it on.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum