Re: master d014a5e: Use fixed-pitch font for display-line-numbers

[Alex <agrambot@gmail.com>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Alex <agrambot@gmail.com>
>> Cc: Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com>,  mvoteiza@udel.edu,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2017 14:15:17 -0600
>> 
>> Where does the code tell a different story? If you mean
>> `face-font-family-alternatives', then I believe it is faulty (see
>> below).
>
> Faulty or not, it tells its story better than the name does.

I agree, though I believe that the end result is counterintuitive
(particularly in Windows). Perhaps there's no helping it.

> Being serif or sans-serif is not the most important attribute of a
> font that Emacs can use as its default.  A much more important
> attribute is how many Unicode blocks and characters within those
> blocks a font supports.  On my Windows XP, Courier New supports twice
> as many blocks and characters as Consolas; on Windows 8.1 Consolas is
> much better, but still lags in coverage behind Courier New.
>
> So using Consolas just because other applications do that is not
> necessarily TRT for Emacs; we must consider other factors of
> importance to us.

That makes sense. I didn't realize Consolas lagged in that department.

>> I believe the following should happen:
>> 
>>   * the defaults for the default face and fixed-pitch should align on
>>     all systems possible
>> 
>>   * fixed-pitch should default to what fixed-pitch serif does now
>>     (Consolas seems suitable)
>> 
>>   * fixed-pitch-serif should default to what the default face does
>>     currently
>> 
>> If this is done, then changing the line-number face to plain "Monospace"
>> should work fine even for Windows.
>
> Sorry, I disagree with making these changes, certainly not for the
> benefit of a minor feature such as display-line-numbers.  We have been
> using Courier New by default since about forever; changing that now is
> bound to send ripples all over the place, since many other face- and
> font-related settings are based on that.

That's unfortunate. What about just removing Consolas from the
"Monospace Serif" list, since it's the only sans-serif font in that
list? That would make things a bit more consistent. It would mean that
Windows would default to courier though, so maybe it's not worth it.

> I have now reverted the change which prompted this sub-thread; I hope
> that will make everyone (except James, perhaps ;-) happier, and we can
> put this issue to rest.

Thanks, that's good to hear. However, it is a bit disappointing that
there's no easy way to specify a face that uses the default face if it's
monospaced, and otherwise falls back to a font that is.

Alternatively, what about using fixed-pitch-serif for line-number on
Windows, and fixed-pitch on other platforms?