From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Luc Teirlinck Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Info menus on text-mode terminals Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 22:21:03 -0500 (CDT) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <200309290321.h8T3L3x12618@raven.dms.auburn.edu> References: <2914-Sat27Sep2003130207+0300-eliz@elta.co.il> <7821-Sun28Sep2003234334+0300-eliz@elta.co.il> <20030928231528.GA13806@fencepost> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1064806361 9018 80.91.224.253 (29 Sep 2003 03:32:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 03:32:41 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eliz@elta.co.il, rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 29 05:32:38 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1A3om6-00034U-00 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 2003 05:32:38 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1A3om6-0000RS-00 for ; Mon, 29 Sep 2003 05:32:38 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.22) id 1A3oh9-0007FK-Em for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Sun, 28 Sep 2003 23:27:31 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.22) id 1A3oh1-0007Ek-LZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 28 Sep 2003 23:27:23 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.22) id 1A3ogz-0007EY-W2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 28 Sep 2003 23:27:22 -0400 Original-Received: from [131.204.53.104] (helo=manatee.dms.auburn.edu) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.22) id 1A3oed-0006p5-AO; Sun, 28 Sep 2003 23:24:55 -0400 Original-Received: from raven.dms.auburn.edu (raven.dms.auburn.edu [131.204.53.29]) by manatee.dms.auburn.edu (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id h8T3OkAJ006170; Sun, 28 Sep 2003 22:24:46 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: (from teirllm@localhost) by raven.dms.auburn.edu (8.11.6+Sun/8.11.6) id h8T3L3x12618; Sun, 28 Sep 2003 22:21:03 -0500 (CDT) X-Authentication-Warning: raven.dms.auburn.edu: teirllm set sender to teirllm@dms.auburn.edu using -f Original-To: miles@gnu.org In-reply-to: <20030928231528.GA13806@fencepost> (message from Miles Bader on Sun, 28 Sep 2003 19:15:28 -0400) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:16752 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:16752 Miles Bader wrote: In the previous discussion I advocated actually modifying and filling the buffer text to achieve Kim's layout improvements, instead of using display property hacks to do it. This would allow better layout, and eliminate some weird side-effects of using display properties (such as funny cursor movement). Yes, but it would have severe negative effects, as I already pointed out in the previous discussion. The current implementation of Info-hide-note-references and related features is fundamentally flawed because it tries to reformat Info files as if they were written in a mark up language. They are not, they are plain text. The only way to ever make such functionality work completely satisfactorily is through a new option to makeinfo. (That is probably what we eventually will have to do, but, unfortunately, currently nobody seems to have the time to do it.) One consequence of that is that the refilling as attempted a while ago did not respect the functionality in (texinfo)Breaks, such as @* and @w. I have had to use @w in texinfo, to avoid extremely bad line breaks. Remember that texinfo is supposed to be a general purpose mark up language, not a hyper-specialized language for use in Emacs documentation. For some types of text, say mathematical text, being able to force and avoid line breaks is extremely important. If the file contains text of a mathematical nature, line breaks at the wrong places look disastrously bad. In general, in any type of more technical text, if one uses technical symbols that _need_ to stay together, you _need_ to be able to rely 100% on @w. If not, texinfo as a mark up language would be badly broken. Actually, it would be more correct to say that Emacs as an Info reader would be badly broken, but due to the importance of Emacs as an Info reader, that would necessarily affect the texinfo language as such. (We discussed this before.) In the context of that discussion, I think you're right, there was no mention was made of ttys. The `tty problem' is even more incentive to do it though... Richard seems to believe that there is some hope to make "space" work on ttys for integer spacing values. That would eliminate this bug and probably eliminate similar, not yet discovered, problems on ttys as well. (I doubt that the problem we are looking at is the absolute only instance where somebody used the display property and forgot to test his code on a tty.) Sincerely, Luc.