Re: Is Emacs on Aqua crippleware or is it just broken?

[bk_usenet@yahoo.co.uk (BK)]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote ...

> You might want to read the Emacs manual on the clipboard and MacOS.

If you refer to <M-x> menu-bar-enable-clipboard, yes I tried that,
too, but it didn't change the fact that paste doesn't work.

I have also read the section "Keyboard input on the Mac" but it
doesn't have anything to offer that addresses my problem (most Emacs
shortcuts being deaf).

The section on fonts seems to suggest how to change fonts/sizes, but I
still don't know how to change the default font or its size. Anyway,
fonts are the least of my problems.

Anything else in that manual assumes that the Emacs keyboard shortcuts
work, but for me most of them are deaf, so the manual doesn't really
help.


> While you seem to have more fun just ranting, there might be a source
> of inspiration in it WRT to writing a manual about Emacs and MacOS.

You are not paying attention. I am not writing any manual. I am
writing a mini-how-to that aims to get OSX users who are interested in
Common Lisp *past* Emacs quickly instead of having to spend an entire
week just to get the editor working.

Working means they will be able to launch Emacs and have ILISP load
automatically so they can do M-x openmcl or M-x allegro and get a
listener to their choice of Lisp within Emacs. This, I have already
covered.

However, other than being a bridge between Emacs and an external Lisp
listener, ILISP also provides various convenience features, such as
context sensitive access to the Common Lisp HyperSpec, a web based
documentation that describes the ANSI CL standard. Those features are
activated by Emacs keyboard shorcuts. So, if the shortcuts are deaf
then the added value that ILISP is supposed to bring is greatly
diminished.

And if there are things that Mac users are used to that are not
supposed to work in Emacs, such as choosing "Quit" from the menu in
order to quit, that's fair enough, but I better tell those folks right
away what to expect. Because otherwise, I risk getting swamped with
email asking me why this and that doesn't seem to work.


rgds
bk