Re: --daemon vs. server-start

[Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu>]

Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net> writes:

  > On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:39:06 -0800 (PST) Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu> wrote:
  > 
  > > You seem to assume that "emacs" and "emacs --daemon" are doing the same
  > > thing, they are not,
  > > emacs --daemon 
  > > is similar to 
  > > emacs -nw -f server-start
  > 
  > Thanks for the clarification.  Obviously, I did not understand this from
  > the documentation (Emacs manual, NEWS).  Did I overlook it?  If so,
  > would you please give me a pointer, and if not, could this please be
  > documented?

No idea if this is documented, and I personally think it's not worth
bothering, but probably the docs people would welcome patches.


  > > so emacs --daemon it will ignore all the X11 related options.
  > 
  > Is this fundamental to starting Emacs without an initial frame, or
  > an artifact of the current implementation?  In other words, could
  > --daemon be implemented in a way that allows passing X11 options?

It probably could, no idea how hard it would be.  Just needs someone
that cares about this to sit down and do it.

  > One thing that
  > makes me think this should be possible is the fact that I can "pass" X11
  > options that are exposed to Lisp; e.g., when I invoke Emacs like this:
  > 
  > emacs -Q --daemon --eval "(setq default-frame-alist '((font-backend . \"xft\") (font . \"Dejavu Sans-10\")))"

This is not passing X11 options, this directly setting internal data
structures, you can do anything that way. 

  > 
  > and then invoke `emacsclient -c', the frame that appears has the font
  > Dejavu Sans-10 with antialiasing.  In contrast, as I observed in my OP,
  > with this invocation:
  > 
  > emacs -Q --daemon -xrm "Emacs.FontBackend: xft" -fn "Dejavu Sans-10"
  > 
  > the frame that appears upon `emacsclient -c' has neither antialiasing
  > nor this font.  What I don't understand is why the former invocation
  > "works" and the latter doesn't.  (I accept that that's the way it is, I
  > just don't see why.)  I'd be interested in and grateful for an
  > explanation.

Again, starting 
emacs -Q --daemon
is similar to starting
emacs -Q -nw -f server-start 
add your options at the end and compare the effect.