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Subject: |
26.3; `menu-bar-separator' |
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Date: |
Mon, 11 Jan 2021 16:32:31 -0800 (PST) |
This variable (defconst) doesn't seem to be documented anywhere.
It seems to be used for menus in general; it doesn't seem to be tied to
the menu-bar in any way. And its only doc is the doc string, which says
only "Separator for menus." Could it be renamed to remove any mention
of the menu-bar (keeping the old name as alias)?
How is it actually used? Is it used only in (some?) toolkits?
It's a defconst (why?), so presumably you shouldn't change it. But
changing it doesn't seem to have any effect anyway, in MS Windows. If
this is hard-coded then why is it even needed?
In GNU Emacs 26.3 (build 1, x86_64-w64-mingw32)
of 2019-08-29
Repository revision: 96dd0196c28bc36779584e47fffcca433c9309cd
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.18362
Configured using:
`configure --without-dbus --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32
--without-compress-install 'CFLAGS=-O2 -static -g3''
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Subject: |
Re: bug#45806: 26.3; `menu-bar-separator' |
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Date: |
Tue, 12 Jan 2021 19:03:40 +0200 |
> Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 08:34:04 -0800 (PST)
> From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Cc: 45806@debbugs.gnu.org
>
> > Sorry, this name is with us for too long to rename it now.
>
> Not a great reason not to rename and alias.
Why am I not surprised that you don't accept the judgment of the
project maintainers?
> > > How is it actually used? Is it used only in (some?) toolkits?
> >
> > Look at menu-bar.el (obviously), it's used all over there. On all the
> > toolkits and also in no-toolkit builds.
>
> I already looked at all occurrences in the Lisp sources.
Then I really wonder why are you asking all these questions.
> AFAICT, _none_ of those occurrences show how it's used
> in the sense of explaining its effect.
You see the effect as soon as you look at the menus which use it.
> I'm looking for info about its implementation and what
> it actually does - info presumably available in some C
> code. HOW it does what it does.
The HOW is always in the code, so filing a bug about the documentation
is not going to reveal that: we won't describe the implementation in
the documentation.
So I'm closing this bug report.
> See also the question about whether it's used only by
> toolkits. In GUI Emacs on MS Windows, for instance,
> the effect of a separator is a continuous separator
> line, while the effect with `emacs -nw' seems to be a
> pair of hyphen chars.
Each toolkit/UI variant produces its particular visual, but they all
do, and the effect is the same: to visually separate between groups of
menu items.
> > See above. If you really want to see the effect of changing it
> > (why?), I think you will need to rebuild Emacs.
>
> You think so? How about having the doc specify that,
> or whatever the actual behavior is.
I see no reason. You are looking for the kind of internal details
that are always found in the code.
> FWIW, this bug report is a result of seeing this user
> question:
>
> "Is it possible to change the menu separator?"
>
> https://emacs.stackexchange.com/q/62717/105
Not every question means something is wrong with our documentation.
Sometimes the answer is "use the source, Luc".
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