Re: Is Emacs on Aqua crippleware or is it just broken?

[Piet van Oostrum]

>>>>> bk_usenet@yahoo.co.uk (BK) (B) wrote:

B> I tried several builds of Aqua versions of Emacs on OSX and all of
B> them exhibit severe symptoms of crippleware. I would like to know if
B> those are supposed to work or are they just bugs.

Apparently you didn't try the most recent one, the CVS version of the
official Emacs as this supports most of it. I wouldn't call it a crippled
version, although certain things have not yet been implemented. It is still
in development. It is called Carbon Emacs. If you don't want to compile it
yourself you can at least find an installable version by Enrico Franconi
(http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~franconi/). So I will answer your objections with
regard to this version.

B> 1) No Drag and Drop - files

B> On a Mac you can just drag a file icon with the mouse onto an
B> application icon and the application will open the file.

Works.

B> 2) No Drag and Drop - text snippets

B> On a Mac you can just drag a snippet of text with the mouse from one
B> application and drag it directly into another application.

I don't know if it has been implemented. I don't think so, and emacs' way
of working with the mouse is quite different from other applications, so I
think first some agreement must be made about how to do this.

B> 3) Systemwide Clipboard - cut and paste

B> On a Mac you can cut or copy a text snippet to the clipboard while in
B> one application and then paste it back while in another application.

Works.

B> 4) HIG violations - quitting

B> On a Mac, all applications *must* quit when "Quit" is selected in the
B> applications main menu (the one that carries its name). Further,
B> applications *must* quit when the user choses "Quit" from the menu in
B> the application's dock item. Finally, Cmd-Q is the designated keyboard
B> shortcut for quitting.

The Emacs keybinding for quit is C-x C-q. The problem is that if you use
the `standard' Mac keybindings you are non-standard with respect with
other emacsen. This also applies to the following items. Quit from the
Dock does quit emacs. Quit from the application menu is disabled, but
there really is not much reason for it as it works from the Dock. So it
could easily be enabled I think.

B> 5) HIG violations - paste

B> On a Mac, cut/copy/paste is Cmd-x/c/v. Emacs doesn't adhere to this,
B> but in principle, this can be changed back to normal by defining
B> keyboard macros.

Same as above. The keybindings can be changed but then youhave to find
alternatives for the rebound keys. On Windows there is a cua.el and some
others that do this. It would be easy to adapt this to Mac style (Cmd-
rather than Control-).

B> Unfortunately, "Paste", which is now Ctrl-y doesn't work at all,
B> neither from the keyboard nor from the Menu. Bug or feature?

Works. Both menu and keyboard. In fact for Copy you don't need either.
Just select with the mouse (I think transient-mark-mode must be enabled for
this feature) and paste it in another application with Cmd-V.

B> 6) Emacs keyboard shortcuts

B> Most of the Emacs keyboard shortcuts don't work. Bug or feature?

What do you mean?
I can use all normal Emacs keyboard commands.

B> 7) User Preferences - Fonts

B> On just about every Mac application, you can set your preferred font
B> and size. It seems Emacs doesn't allow one to do that. How do you
B> change the font/size?

Emacs has some special requirements for fonts I think. This area needs
some work. I haven't found a way to select a bigger font.

-- 
Piet van Oostrum <piet@cs.uu.nl>
URL: http://www.cs.uu.nl/~piet [PGP]
Private email: P.van.Oostrum@hccnet.nl