bug#12590: 24.2.50; doc string of `font-list-limit'

bug#12590: 24.2.50; doc string of `font-list-limit'

[Drew Adams]

This option seems to be limited to integer values (?).  There is no Lisp
defcustom for it (why not - why put this in C code?), so I don't know
what the type is except by experimenting with the edit field and getting
an error saying that it must be an integer.
 
So if it MUST be an integer, why does the doc string say this:
 
 "If an integer > 0,..."
 
Presumably that is distinguish what happens if the value is an integer
less than or equal to zero.  Well, what does happen in that case?
 
Not clear at all, for users.

In GNU Emacs 24.2.50.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2012-10-02 on DANI-PC
Bzr revision: 110346 cyd@gnu.org-20121002152147-6a46skux2i4t0n2c
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
Configured using:
 `configure --with-gcc (4.7) --no-opt --enable-checking --cflags
 -I../../libs/libxpm-3.5.8/include -I../../libs/libxpm-3.5.8/src
 -I../../libs/libpng-1.4.10 -I../../libs/zlib-1.2.6
 -I../../libs/giflib-4.1.4-1/include -I../../libs/jpeg-6b-4/include
 -I../../libs/tiff-3.8.2-1/include
 -I../../libs/libxml2-2.7.8-w32-bin/include/libxml2
 -I../../libs/gnutls-3.0.16/include
 -I../../libs/libiconv-1.14-2-mingw32-dev/include'
 

bug#12590: 24.2.50; doc string of `font-list-limit'

[Drew Adams]

The doc should also indicate something about performance.  Why might you not
want to set this to 1000000?  IOW, why do we even have a limit as a user option.
The doc should give some guidelines, otherwise it is useless - all users know is
that they can limit the number of fonts that are listed.  Is that really all
there is to it?  If so, why have an option for that?

bug#12590: 24.2.50; doc string of `font-list-limit'

[Drew Adams]

It's also unclear which fonts are not listed if there are more available than
the option value.  How is that determined, by font name alphabetically?  If so,
which part of the font name comes first, etc.

Also, the doc in the Elisp manual about this option is no more verbose than that
in the doc string, but it is far more helpful: It says what the option affects.
The doc string is pretty useless as is.

bug#12590: 24.2.50; doc string of `font-list-limit'

[Chong Yidong]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> This option seems to be limited to integer values (?).  There is no Lisp
> defcustom for it (why not - why put this in C code?), so I don't know
> what the type is except by experimenting with the edit field and getting
> an error saying that it must be an integer.

Actually, font-list-limit has had no effect since at least Emacs 23.  I
marked it as obsolete.