Re: Fwd: overlay face property not used for after-string property

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     I think this information may not be enough.  I think the policy would
>     also need to know which of the overlay properties before-string,
>     display, or after-string the string comes from.
>
> In most cases you can determine this by looking at the overlay's
> properties and seeing where the string appears.  That will work except
> when the overlay has two properties that contain strings that are eq.
>
> That is not good enough for the final implementation, but it is good
> enough for experimenting to find the right criteria.  If the right
> criteria really depend on this information, we can add a mechanism to
> provide the information efficiently and reliably.  So I see no need to
> do that until we know whether it is needed.

I think that the before-string should, in effect, use
(get-char-property (overlay-start ov) 'face)
to determine the face to use if no fully specified face is in the
before-string.

Similarly for after-string.  That's simple, clear and straightforward
for the user to understand.  It also has the "right thing" feeling to
it, which ignoring surrounding faces doesn't.

-- 
David Kastrup