Re: Emacs, QT and Cairo Was: Re: Efforts to attract more users?

["Andrew W. Nosenko" <andrew.w.nosenko@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 22:02, Stephen Eilert <spedrosa@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Bernardo Barros
> <bernardobarros2@gmail.com> wrote:
>> many people in the gnu world are using qt4. are there reasons not to
>> consider it?

From my experience, binding C++ library into C program is not the best
way to spend your free time.  But it is my personal expirience and
opinion. Your mileage may vary.

>>
>
> Does it matter?
>
> You see, it is not like Emacs has stretched GTK's capabilities to the
> limit. Actually there isn't much being used: menu, the window itself,
> scrollbars and a very primitive toolbar (that I always turn off), as
> far as I can tell.
>
> What about exposing Cairo bindings (GTK already uses it, so it is not
> exactly a new dependency, only the headers) to elisp so that we can
> actually draw a prettier user interface? Things like real lines
> instead of "-" for the modeline (and a better looking modeline
> itself), better looking widgets (the horrendous fake buttons created
> by customize, for example), better fringe layer or even, say, an UML
> mode with good-looking classes. And perhaps a cute speedbar.

May be better to start not from Cairo, but from starting using GTK+
itself?  IMHO you don't need Cairo for draw the GTK button widget (may
be GTK itself need cairo for this, but it's GTK's problem, not your,
and buttons were there far before cairo was started at all :-).  May
be you need Cairo for _simulate_ the current button widget look, but
IMO better to just use the real button instead of simulating it.

Yet another example: scrollbars.  I remember discussions where better
to place them by default.  But I don't remember anyone who pointed
that position of scrollbars controlled by and desktop environment and
gtkrc (GTK+ semi-analog of xrdb).  Where scrollbar should be?  --
there where the rest of of desktop places it and controlled from the
place where the rest of desktop controlled.  Of course it may and
should be able to be customized on per-application basis and Emacs
here far ahead of the rest.  But...  But why speaking about scrollbar
on the right vs. scrollbar on the left [by default] no one mentioned
third possibility: the desktop default setting?

Thus, my personal humble opinion: may be instead of introducing the
new tool it would be better just to exploit better/deeper the current
(and, by the way, the very powerful) tool?

>
> Yes, looks do matter. Most Emacs screenshots look kinda dated and
> primitive - and this carries over to the overall perception. I've
> added hundreds of lines to my .emacs for looks alone, but I can't draw
> something better programatically.
>
>
> --Stephen
>
> Sent from my Emacs
>
>

-- 
Andrew W. Nosenko <andrew.w.nosenko@gmail.com>