Re: Bigger fringe bitmaps

[Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@thregr.org>]

On Thu, Mar 17 2022, Po Lu wrote:
>> I suspect upscaling with nearest-neighbor would be a possibility for the
>> moment, but it's the API surrounding the fixed bitmap sizes that doesn't
>> look future-proof to me.
>
> It should be reasonably future-proof, since we can always add
> higher-resolution fringe bitmaps later.
>
> Scaling of display elements (such as face boxes, tool-bar margins and
> bitmaps, and fringes) is something I'm working on, but progress is
> limited since I don't have any HiDPI hardware to test on.

No comment on the idea of potentially using characters in the fringe?

I find the idea appealing somehow, even ignoring hidpi issues, simply
because "it's just more text".

I like the idea of using 🢱 (or ⤶⤷) for wrapped text, 🮗 as a
end-of-buffer, and so on. Easily scaled, and nicely antialiased.

Especially the fact that this would potentially mean an usable fringe
mode on character displays that can be toggled, so that you don't need
to provide an alternate signaling mechanism if you rely on the fringe to
show makers (like gud).

Just to throw ideas on the ground, what if we accepted 3 alternatives
when setting a fringe symbol:

- a bitmap
- a character symbol for character displays (where the font family has
  to be the same throughout the display and thus can be more limited in
  choice)
- a character for graphical displays (where the fringe face can be set
  to a different family entirely)