From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: PJ Weisberg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Using proportional (variable-width) fonts in Emacs23 Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:49:48 -0700 Message-ID: References: <898836.13190.qm@web121803.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <4d9120aa$0$23756$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <47119ce7-b1d1-4967-aa3e-d10112f10510@q40g2000prh.googlegroups.com> <4d9232cb$0$23752$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <516de695-18e0-4442-9616-63bc24b99a58@18g2000prd.googlegroups.com> <4d92ead3$0$23757$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <87sju47n29.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <33669aa8-47ea-48c5-8dc9-fb216893ef03@f15g2000pro.googlegroups.com> <87fwq47ggx.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <83sju4qxvb.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1301514898 30604 80.91.229.12 (30 Mar 2011 19:54:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:54:58 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Mar 30 21:54:53 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Q51TW-0000bv-JL for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:54:49 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:33016 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Q51TG-00025i-Kq for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:54:26 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=46575 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Q51Oz-0000PQ-SV for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:50:03 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Q51Or-00071S-Sn for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:49:55 -0400 Original-Received: from p3plsmtpa01-03.prod.phx3.secureserver.net ([72.167.82.83]:35591) by eggs.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Q51Or-00070t-MU for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:49:53 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 10241 invoked from network); 30 Mar 2011 19:49:50 -0000 Original-Received: from unknown (209.85.161.41) by p3plsmtpa01-03.prod.phx3.secureserver.net (72.167.82.83) with ESMTP; 30 Mar 2011 19:49:50 -0000 Original-Received: by fxm18 with SMTP id 18so1617668fxm.0 for ; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:49:48 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: by 10.223.59.146 with SMTP id l18mr151892fah.58.1301514588509; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:49:48 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: by 10.223.70.198 with HTTP; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:49:48 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <83sju4qxvb.fsf@gnu.org> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 72.167.82.83 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:80550 Archived-At: On 3/30/11, Eli Zaretskii wrote: >> From: "Pascal J. Bourguignon" >> Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:53:02 +0200 >> >> rusi writes: >> >> >> Unfortunately, Editors with proportional fonts don't >> >> have indenting and formating algorithms sophisticated enough to render >> >> code like in the later example (that would require even more than >> >> understanding the program!). >> > >> > Well that is (may be?) the current situation. Why cant it change? >> >> Because you would need strong AI to do it right > > Not necessarily. In Emacs, we can specify that text be displayed > aligned to a specific width in pixels. See the node "Specified Space" > in the ELisp manual. Perhaps display of programming languages could > use this feature to align program source even with proportional fonts. Something like the rule "after a string of two or more whitespace characters, position the next character as if the preceeding text on that line was monospaced"? It would do a decent job of guessing when the programmer is trying to align things and put the text in a standard place. It would take some tuning to avoid making the gaps excessively large, though. (And I'm sure it would annoy plenty of people who *expect* all code to be monospaced.) -PJ