Re: Implementation of :inherit parameter for faces

Ben> The idea seems to be that faces under GNU Emacs are now Ben> specified through a series of attributes, the importance of Ben> which is that fonts have been exploded into a whole series of Ben> new properties -- slant, weight, height, family, etc. In the medium term, this is the right way to handle this. The main question is whether fonts need to exist as a separate entity exposed as a public API; I would say "no". Lisp should specify properties of faces, then the internals (which might also be an internal Lisp API, of course) should dispatch out to platform facilities to get fonts, colors, background pixmaps, theme songs (to be automagically played when point enters the extent ;-), etc., and combine them into a face. Note that we now (in various branches) support X "short names", XLFDs (which have sucky abbreviation properties), fontconfig, MS Windows, and Mac OS X font names. AFAICT the last three are similar but subtly different. Ben> I'd like to hear people's thoughts on [a] how important is Ben> this functionality, Moderately so even in the short run, IMHO. Must-have, eventually. Ben> [b] who would use it, Lots of 3rd party maintainers are "working around" our deficiency already. I believe Gnus, ECB, and AUCTeX, at least. Ben> [c] how much of it needs to be implemented, and when "Just put in a minimal hack to get font-lock minimally working, then worry about it properly later." is my offhand preference because I think there are design issues that deserve thought, even sleeping on, because of the nuisance differences among MSW, fontconfig, and Carbon. -- Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Ask not how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software.