Re: [Announce] The new Emacs homepage is online!

["Clément Pit--Claudel" <clement.pit@gmail.com>]

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On 03/29/2016 11:20 PM, Drew Adams wrote:
>> Even just inverting to white-on-black would look much better.
>
> Seriously?  Beauty, and eye-strain, are apparently in the eye of the 
> beholder - at least in part.
> 
> http://lmgtfy.com/?q=eye+strain+reading+online+light+dark+background+screen
> http://lmgtfy.com/?q=best+background+color+for+reading+on+computer

Drew, sending a let-me-google-that-for-you link feels insulting. I'm sure you meant it as a joke, but it looks rude from here.

Besides, here's a quote from the first result of the first link:

> Therefore, you want a background with about the intensity of a dark 
> grey, with something about the intensity of a light grey.  However, 
> to get the high contrast I discussed above, you need to use color.

I don't necessarily agree, but I think your reply highlights the importance of showing that Emacs's looks can be customized to the taste of the user. I'll also note that:

* vim is traditionally used in white-on-black terminals
* Atom uses a dark theme by default
* Spacemacs uses a dark theme by default
* Visual Studio provides both options, and asks you at installation time

On the other hand, Eclipse and jEdit do default to black on white.

Drew, what would you think of adding a carousel showing the default themes? Maybe it would help make sure that everyone does get a "phew, Emacs can be made pretty" moment (though more people would also get a "eww, who would want Emacs to look like that" moment too). Nicolas, do you think it would be a good idea? Would we want to also show more heavily customized copies of Emacs? Ideally, this could even come with the script used to generate the screenshots, so users can copy the styles if they want (in the fashion of what matplotlib does at http://matplotlib.org/gallery.html, for example). I'm sure Chris would be happy to provide details about the configuration that he used.

Nicolas, maybe the following could be a useful starting point? It prepares Emacs as shown in https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cpitclaudel/biblio.el/master/etc/screenshots/biblio.el.png , and takes a screenshot automatically.

(defconst biblio-screenshots--fringe-width 8)

(defun biblio-screenshots--make-emacs-pretty ()
  "Prettify Emacs."
  (redisplay t)
  (load-theme 'tango t)
  (set-face-attribute 'default nil :height 105)
  (set-face-attribute 'default nil :foreground "black")
  (set-face-attribute 'mode-line nil :foreground "gray60" :background "black")
  (set-face-attribute 'mode-line-inactive nil :foreground "gray60" :background "#404045")
  (set-face-attribute 'mode-line-buffer-id nil :foreground "#eab700")
  (set-fontset-font t 'unicode "Ubuntu Mono")
  (set-fontset-font t 'unicode "Symbola Monospacified for Ubuntu Mono" nil 'append)
  (tool-bar-mode -1)
  (menu-bar-mode -1)
  (scroll-bar-mode -1)
  (column-number-mode)
  (fringe-mode (cons biblio-screenshots--fringe-width biblio-screenshots--fringe-width))
  (blink-cursor-mode -1)
  (setq-default cursor-type nil
                split-width-threshold 100
                mode-line-format '(" " mode-line-buffer-identification " " mode-name))
  (set-frame-size (selected-frame) 128 30))

(defun biblio-screenshots--save-screenshot ()
  "Save screenshot of current frame."
  (let ((fname (expand-file-name "biblio.el.png" biblio-screenshots--script-dir)))
    (process-lines "import" "-window" (frame-parameter nil 'outer-window-id)
                   fname)
    (process-lines "mogrify" "-strip" "-matte"
                   "-bordercolor" (face-attribute 'fringe :background)
                   "-border" (format "0x%d" biblio-screenshots--fringe-width) fname)
    (process-lines "optipng" "-o3" fname))
  (kill-emacs))

(defun biblio-screenshots--prepare ()
  "Prepare a screenshot."
  (biblio-screenshots--make-emacs-pretty)
  (delete-other-windows)
  (Some setup code here to show the right window configuration))

(defun biblio-screenshots--do ()
  "Prepare and take screenshot."
  (biblio-screenshots--prepare)
  (force-window-update)
  (redisplay t)
  (run-with-timer 1 nil #'biblio-screenshots--save-screenshot))

I use a similar process to generate the (many) screenshots at https://github.com/cpitclaudel/company-coq/#screenshots . I don't claim that they are particularly pretty; just that that script might be useful :)

Cheers,
Clément.


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