From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: enriched-mode and switching major modes. Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 13:40:47 -0400 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200409042358.i84Nwjt19152@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <87llfn5ihw.fsf@emacswiki.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1094838149 25310 80.91.224.253 (10 Sep 2004 17:42:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 17:42:29 +0000 (UTC) Cc: epameinondas@gmx.de, boris@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Sep 10 19:42:23 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1C5pPj-0006Nc-00 for ; Fri, 10 Sep 2004 19:42:23 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1C5pV7-0003TZ-3Z for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2004 13:47:57 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1C5pUN-00033g-UB for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2004 13:47:12 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1C5pUM-00033B-P6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2004 13:47:10 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1C5pUM-00032Y-Cl for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2004 13:47:10 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.164] (helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1C5pOK-0005xm-DK for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2004 13:40:56 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.34) id 1C5pOB-0007dg-AN; Fri, 10 Sep 2004 13:40:53 -0400 Original-To: Alex Schroeder In-reply-to: <87llfn5ihw.fsf@emacswiki.org> (message from Alex Schroeder on Mon, 06 Sep 2004 21:01:47 +0200) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 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 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:26978 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:26978 True, the current implementation allows future derivatives of text-mode -- such as a major mode to write movie scripts -- to add persistent colors to the text. It also allows existing simple variants of text mode, such as paragraph-indent-text-mode, to work with enriched mode. But how often is this power used? Enriched mode is not used much, now. Part of the reason is that we don't have code to save in the formats users really use, and part is that we have not implemented enough of the display formatting features that people want in a word processor. This is an unfinished feature. But does the lack of usage really make a difference here? And at what cost does this power come? I don't see the point here. What do you think the cost is? At present, what we see a bug. I admit that the bug is not trivial to fix, but I don't see that the "power" of enriched mode has a "cost" in some inherent sense. Even if we wanted this power, wouldn't it be better if such modes could just add some defun to a hook or two that would automatically do the right thing: Automatically encode and decode text properties upon saving and reading files. Without all the other features of enriched mode which are rarely useful in this case, such as the the treatment of newlines or the keybindings. I am not really sure what feature you have in mind. It might be a useful feature, but it would not replace the existing feature of Enriched mode.