From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: John Yates Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Towards a WYSIWYG word processing (was: What improvements would be truly useful?) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 16:45:56 -0500 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1520372733 25535 195.159.176.226 (6 Mar 2018 21:45:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 21:45:33 +0000 (UTC) Cc: John Wiegley , daniele@grinta.net, Emacs developers To: Richard Stallman Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Mar 06 22:45:28 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1etKON-0003nm-FH for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 22:45:03 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:58475 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1etKQQ-0002KS-3i for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 16:47:10 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:47517) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1etKPJ-00025F-Mq for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 16:46:02 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1etKPI-00089x-Ub for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 16:46:01 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-ua0-x236.google.com ([2607:f8b0:400c:c08::236]:34579) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1etKPG-000861-A4; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 16:45:58 -0500 Original-Received: by mail-ua0-x236.google.com with SMTP id m43so103942uah.1; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 13:45:57 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20161025; h=mime-version:sender:from:date:message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=qo/JQmwTRixpbNIeSxatZm+bdND0ZLRBXHdvZt+vtHI=; b=AMZXsKUbTyey5fpjvLST4SNojuUd5VkSwfExByZguJ8Jrxm2BFUfFKGb6YXQzKpp66 lsCZz9r+lLxLUQRHU8N3KcduoO/JccJ8dEBS63Q0GLMkdg0SlFRVsS0P10cRA6HrrYtG dK7iPquxyhMvQo81UgyRUbU4A9kK/fb39yAyg5P8LJGMOAK3xp4UVXTmGfRyeLmqOb/l Mrjft6O5sFt9Z7ct0tUtnKFakh3D0kU4xmajI9vwDSZpCNZXz/DwPEct+CgKm9MqT/ej k2cJAINTWyE93XXnn28PnyvRN/FE7sClqkwObEN7ZZuLd6z9QSh0UgDimzgDXlAK0cYk xheQ== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:sender:from:date:message-id:subject :to:cc; bh=qo/JQmwTRixpbNIeSxatZm+bdND0ZLRBXHdvZt+vtHI=; b=H/IgXj4dZBOBKF4a+LxCAuemXkaumYPT3a525cay2Was6JIwU72RGAM7DBP0edISF3 HLeH36QvtSenwynwOat6GqbZOOH+QBLT/mNQc2koiF4m1czwEBpTAgHKisH/sAlwaj38 g/KZUbDbJ99RauK2sKnf8O8nRk+16MPEIdGdoBXZbAVvufKxwZcJ+r/gR6PvPwmKF3SX kGmTFxf7WF8Gj5LahdgrV42IaxZGMok41jtOKSr/nWmK2RvTJtg96Wahg4HQcqdgiz7l iCVGSUtnWTcf8HdMkoJgMXUGmvlpTiQK48twaUhdVHoW9rKIr0wCNQvCvYxm+PzLbWNJ 5BtQ== X-Gm-Message-State: APf1xPDWZMVdR1/G3Xp9/ct8HCAGpv+KaQe/xjYVdsCMJV7jxTgv556w XrIom2HDN0oj3m+ZSfJgFSZzQ/Z9AKeWxSzPqbarUg== X-Google-Smtp-Source: AG47ELvVoFY0LjOCaVKj/EavUtO+7QoJd3DEfNB01/8ZFCpHV5XuTR+yTyHmi/Pku5om1TB3dOvZE9ewmD7hCq/kz+Y= X-Received: by 10.176.76.77 with SMTP id d13mr14620382uag.123.1520372756970; Tue, 06 Mar 2018 13:45:56 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: by 10.31.155.65 with HTTP; Tue, 6 Mar 2018 13:45:56 -0800 (PST) X-Google-Sender-Auth: vGPKmtP-fwJhNdLaNU1Wgdbp2ik X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 2607:f8b0:400c:c08::236 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:223386 Archived-At: On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 3:51 PM, Richard Stallman wrote: > Once we can do proper formatting of paragraphs > with variable-width text, with a few kinds of alignment, and we can > save these in files, we will be able to use it for writing letters and > handouts, instead of LibreOffice. I agree that filling with proportional fonts is a crucial piece of building a WYSIWYG editor. But I suspect that the number of folk for whom that is the threshold impediment to using Emacs for "writing letters and handouts" is exceedingly small. That user experience would be akin to the earliest versions of MS Word or WordPerfect: all styling applied manually. Today Emacs is able to understand the structure of the text in a buffer based on its mode (either because the contents is created and maintained entirely by elisp code or because the mode knows how to parse the buffer's contents). Given such understanding the mode can then do an intelligent job refilling, reformatting and rendering. Until Emacs has some way of modeling the structure of a text document I doubt that we will see any significant uptake in its use a LibreOffice replacement. /john