Re: A modern-mode?

[Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com>]

João Távora <joaotavora@gmail.com> writes:

> On Wed, Sep 16, 2020 at 1:40 PM Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com> wrote:
>
>  João Távora <joaotavora@gmail.com> writes:
>
>  >                          I just meant the "custom-themes" 
>  > infrastructure should be enough to accommodate enough of 
>  > the proposed "modern-mode".  Not sure if it is (as I don't use it).
>  No, it is not. It lacks unified framework to use as logicla names for
>  color use; someting similar to what you have in <h1>, <h2>, ... <h8> in
>  html, just as example. Instead people use rgb values directly in their
>  packages, and when user changes a theme, packages does not follow. So
>  theme engine in Emacs needs a little additional work.
>
> In theming, Emacs works with faces, not with colors. Those 
> would seem to be sufficient logical placeholders for 
> various types of colors.  But indeed my message suffered
> from this confusion, too.
You are probably correct about this one. I myself are not very well
acustomed to theming engine, faces, defface etc so I might not be aware
that this mechanism already is there. Question is why 3rd party packages
don't use those placeholders? Is it lack of documentation? Or something else.

>  >  I'm 
>  > almost always wary of giants or grand reinventions of things.
>  > For the "base" Emacs experience that is, in their setups people 
>  > can use all the ivys, dooms, helms and magits they want.
>  I understand your sentiment, but then, you could say this for any
>  feature, inclusive fido-mode or icomplete or even find-file.
>
> I don't think you can. It's because of their simplicity that they 
> are much better integrated into Emacs's infrastructure. Compare
> the number of lines and the number of configuration options
> in fido-mode/icomplete-mode to the same number in those other 
> packages. These are leaner packages, they follow the existing
> infrastructure as much as possible, rather than reinvent it.
It is a little bit oranges to apples comparison. Helm offered quite
different interaction model for completions then what was originally
in Emacs. I don't know if fido/icomplete were in place then, so it
is natural that complexity is there. Also offered set of feature is not
the same. Just being simpler in terms of complexity is not good enough
measure of quality, although it might be a reason good enough to use
something. Observer also that when Ivy & Co get to level of Helm
functionality it will probably be as complex as Helm. Same for other
completions etc.

> But if the complexity comparison isn't satisfying to you, it's easy
> to note that changes to the infrastructure, i.e. completion styles,
> are "naturally" absorbed by icomplete-mode and fido-mode, 
> whereas a package such as Helm had to go through great
> efforts to support them (reasonably recently).
Indeed, but it is in the nature of the thing, since it historically had
to invent what was later added to Emacs core? If I understnd the history
correct (correct me if I am wrong).

> Don't understand this bit.  I use ffap a lot and don't need to "enable"
> anything, just M-x ffap. Is it a mode?
Ok, I wasn't precise, it isn't a mode, but one can enable ffap bindings
automatically so they replace ordinary ones by default.