Strange "boldification" of letters

Strange "boldification" of letters

[Torsten Bronger]

Hallöchen!

I observe the following effect with my Emacs 23.0.60.4 on a Gnome
desktop: http://www-users.rwth-aachen.de/Torsten.Bronger/emacs.png

As you can see, the letters "i" and "r" to the left of the cursor
(and the preceding line) are much bolder than the others.  I
achieved this by pressing "up arrow" and "down arrow" many many
times, alternating point between the "n" and the "o" (so, the
right-hand-side neighbours of the bold letters).  By doing this, the
letters became gradually bolder.  The typeface is "monospace-14",
the cursor is non-blinking.  As you can see, sub-pixel anti-aliasing
is switched on with Gnome.

Only some letters are affected.  i, r, x, s, k, w, as far as I can
see.  But "m", for example, stays thin.

What's going on here?

Tschö,
Torsten.

-- 
Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus
                                      Jabber ID: bronger@jabber.org
               (See http://ime.webhop.org for further contact info.)

Re: Strange "boldification" of letters

[Reiner Steib]

On Sat, May 10 2008, Torsten Bronger wrote:

> I observe the following effect with my Emacs 23.0.60.4 on a Gnome [...]

,----[ INSTALL.CVS ]
| Questions, requests, and bug reports about the CVS versions of Emacs
| should be sent to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org rather than gnu.emacs.help
| or gnu.emacs.bug.  Ideally, use M-x report-emacs-bug RET which will
| send it to the proper place.
`----

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: Strange "boldification" of letters

[Stephen Berman]

On Sat, 10 May 2008 13:32:11 +0200 Torsten Bronger <bronger@physik.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:

> Hallöchen!
>
> I observe the following effect with my Emacs 23.0.60.4 on a Gnome
> desktop: http://www-users.rwth-aachen.de/Torsten.Bronger/emacs.png
>
> As you can see, the letters "i" and "r" to the left of the cursor
> (and the preceding line) are much bolder than the others.  I
> achieved this by pressing "up arrow" and "down arrow" many many
> times, alternating point between the "n" and the "o" (so, the
> right-hand-side neighbours of the bold letters).  By doing this, the
> letters became gradually bolder.  The typeface is "monospace-14",
> the cursor is non-blinking.  As you can see, sub-pixel anti-aliasing
> is switched on with Gnome.
>
> Only some letters are affected.  i, r, x, s, k, w, as far as I can
> see.  But "m", for example, stays thin.
>
> What's going on here?
>
> Tschö,
> Torsten.

See the thread on emacs-devel beginning with
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/95458

Steve Berman

Re: Strange "boldification" of letters

[Torsten Bronger]

Hallöchen!

Reiner Steib writes:

> On Sat, May 10 2008, Torsten Bronger wrote:
>
>> I observe the following effect with my Emacs 23.0.60.4 on a Gnome [...]
>
> ,----[ INSTALL.CVS ]
> | Questions, requests, and bug reports about the CVS versions of Emacs
> | should be sent to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org rather than gnu.emacs.help
> | or gnu.emacs.bug.  Ideally, use M-x report-emacs-bug RET which will
> | send it to the proper place.
> `----

I know this passage very well.  But in my opinion it'd be good to
ask the big audience whether it's a bug in Emacs at all before I
post it there.

Tschö,
Torsten.

-- 
Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus
                                      Jabber ID: bronger@jabber.org
               (See http://ime.webhop.org for further contact info.)

Re: Strange "boldification" of letters

[Reiner Steib]

On Sat, May 10 2008, Torsten Bronger wrote:

> Reiner Steib writes:
>> ,----[ INSTALL.CVS ]
>> | Questions, requests, and bug reports about the CVS versions of Emacs
>> | should be sent to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org rather than gnu.emacs.help
>> | or gnu.emacs.bug.  Ideally, use M-x report-emacs-bug RET which will
>> | send it to the proper place.
>> `----
>
> I know this passage very well.  

Is there a good reason not to honor the request of the developers?

> But in my opinion it'd be good to ask the big audience whether it's
> a bug in Emacs at all before I post it there.

The "big audience" here is about released versions of Emacs.  The
development list are - well - about development versions and changes
to reach the developers are better there (although several developers
read this list/newsgroup as well, of course).  In your case, the
problem already is/was under discussion on emacs-devel, as Stephen
Berman pointed out.

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: Strange "boldification" of letters

[Torsten Bronger]

Hallöchen!

Reiner Steib writes:

> On Sat, May 10 2008, Torsten Bronger wrote:
>
>> Reiner Steib writes:
>>> ,----[ INSTALL.CVS ]
>>> | Questions, requests, and bug reports about the CVS versions of Emacs
>>> | should be sent to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org rather than gnu.emacs.help
>>> | or gnu.emacs.bug.  Ideally, use M-x report-emacs-bug RET which will
>>> | send it to the proper place.
>>> `----
>>
>> I know this passage very well.  
>
> Is there a good reason not to honor the request of the developers?

If I know for sure that it is a bug in Emacs, I honor it.  In this
case, I found it totally plausible that it's Gnome which is to blame,
or some other layer between Emacs and my flat panel display.

Besides, the above formulation really is unfortunate: "Questions"
and "requests" should only go to emacs-pretest if they actually mean
the CVS version.  However, 95% of my CVS Emacs is the same as the
last released one, and general Emacs questions should go here -- no
matter which version I have.

Tschö,
Torsten.

-- 
Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus
                                      Jabber ID: bronger@jabber.org
               (See http://ime.webhop.org for further contact info.)

Re: Strange "boldification" of letters

[Joel J. Adamson]

Torsten Bronger <bronger@physik.rwth-aachen.de> writes:

> Hallöchen!
>
> Reiner Steib writes:
>
>> On Sat, May 10 2008, Torsten Bronger wrote:
>>
>>> I observe the following effect with my Emacs 23.0.60.4 on a Gnome [...]
>>
>> ,----[ INSTALL.CVS ]
>> | Questions, requests, and bug reports about the CVS versions of Emacs
>> | should be sent to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org rather than gnu.emacs.help
>> | or gnu.emacs.bug.  Ideally, use M-x report-emacs-bug RET which will
>> | send it to the proper place.
>> `----
>
> I know this passage very well.  But in my opinion it'd be good to
> ask the big audience whether it's a bug in Emacs at all before I
> post it there.

I didn't consider it a bug, since it was a matter of font choice.  I had
that problem in Emacs from CVS on Slackware 12.0 using Dejavu fonts.  I
switched to Terminus and everything is razor-sharp now.

Smoothed fonts got me hooked on Emacs from CVS, and now I don't use
them.  All the other features keep me using it, however.

Joel

-- 
Joel J. Adamson
Biostatistician
Pediatric Psychopharmacology Research Unit
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA  02114
(617) 643-1432
(303) 880-3109
Public key: http://pgp.mit.edu
http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj

Ineffective security measure:

The information transmitted in this electronic communication is intended only
for the person or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential
and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other
use of or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or
entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this
information in error, please contact the Compliance HelpLine at 800-856-1983 and
properly dispose of this information.

Re: Strange "boldification" of letters

[Joel J. Adamson]

Torsten Bronger <bronger@physik.rwth-aachen.de> writes:

> Hallöchen!
>
> Reiner Steib writes:
>
>> On Sat, May 10 2008, Torsten Bronger wrote:
>>
>>> Reiner Steib writes:
>>>> ,----[ INSTALL.CVS ]
>>>> | Questions, requests, and bug reports about the CVS versions of Emacs
>>>> | should be sent to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org rather than gnu.emacs.help
>>>> | or gnu.emacs.bug.  Ideally, use M-x report-emacs-bug RET which will
>>>> | send it to the proper place.
>>>> `----
>>>
>>> I know this passage very well.  
>>
>> Is there a good reason not to honor the request of the developers?
>
> If I know for sure that it is a bug in Emacs, I honor it.  In this
> case, I found it totally plausible that it's Gnome which is to blame,
> or some other layer between Emacs and my flat panel display.

In my last reply I forgot to mention that I had the same problem using
various window managers, none of which included Gnome (Metacity).  It
may be a fonts.conf issue with Dejavu/Bitstream Vera fonts.  Try turning
off font-smoothing, or a different font.

I also had problems using Dejavu in xterm.  In other words I don't think
this is an Emacs issue.

Joel

-- 
Joel J. Adamson
Biostatistician
Pediatric Psychopharmacology Research Unit
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA  02114
(617) 643-1432
(303) 880-3109
Public key: http://pgp.mit.edu
http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj

Ineffective security measure:

The information transmitted in this electronic communication is intended only
for the person or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential
and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other
use of or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or
entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this
information in error, please contact the Compliance HelpLine at 800-856-1983 and
properly dispose of this information.