Re: Post-22.1 development?

[David Reitter <david.reitter@gmail.com>]

On 7 Jun 2007, at 20:48, Sean O'Rourke wrote:

> I have recently experienced similar "integration with a modern
> desktop environment" on Mac OS X, where we have the choice
> between standard Carbon Emacs and Aquamacs, which tries to behave
> more like other Mac applications.  As a longtime Emacs user on
> many platforms, I find Aquamacs highly unpleasant.  Many of its
> "enhancements," like widespread use of variable-width fonts,
> color themes, and pop-up frames, are counterproductive.

I generally recommend Carbon Emacs to people who have been using  
Emacs for a long time. Even though we have a fair amount of switchers  
who come from the "Emacs way" of doing things and are now quite happy  
to alter what they are used to, it appears that Aquamacs gets a lot  
of users who wouldn't like to use Emacs otherwise, and it doesn't  
attract that many experienced Emacs users like you.

Not giving in to demands to make it more "Emacs" like and less "Mac"  
like is part of the concept - we can't please everyone. And besides,  
there's a perfectly nice and very Emacs-like Emacs (Carbon Emacs!)  
available for the platform.

I wouldn't want the GNU Emacs to be "modernized" with respect to the  
UI where the changes would annoy long-time users. However, I would  
want it to offer some of these modernizations as an option in 23. For  
example:

- better support of variable-width fonts
- better support of editing in variable-size windows (e.g.  
replacement or addendum to longlines-mode)
- optional replacement of windows inside frames with multiple frames   
(*)
- toolbars using the system's toolkit rather than something homegrown
- toolkit based dialogs with a redesigned customization hierarchy  
rather than customization buffers

This would make it a lot easier for new users to use Emacs (on all  
platforms).

The extension marked with (*) is actually implemented in Aquamacs  
using a mode called `one-buffer-one-frame-mode'. This is a hack that  
I'd like to rewrite as a patch to the Emacs sources so that it can  
eventually be offered as a standard option.