Re: Some developement questions

[Joost Kremers]

On Wed, Sep 05 2018, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Joost Kremers <address@hidden>
> > IMHO the monospace font is not the problem. The font I get when 
> > I 
> > do `emacs -Q` looks quite good (it's DejaVu Sans Mono, BTW). 
> > But 
> > some way to visualise different types of information (similar 
> > to 
> > what most mode-line packages do), perhaps a few unicode symbols 
> > and a default way to put things at the right side of the mode 
> > line 
> > would, I think, go a long way to make the mode line look more 
> > modern.
>
> Wrt "a few Unicode symbols", do you have concrete proposals?

Not really, to be honest. What would be nice I think would be to 
have less 1980's-looking characters for the initial "U:---" 
appearing in the mode line. Two things that immediately come to 
mind (but that I personally don't like and wouldn't endorse) are 
of course a pad lock for read-only files and a floppy disk for an 
unmodified buffer. A floppy disk with the `error` face could then 
be used to indicate a modified buffer.

Personally, what I'd prefer are symbols that are abstract but 
don't really convey this 1980's feeling. For example, I kinda like 
the modified/unmodified indicators used in the screen shots at 
<https://github.com/dustinlacewell/eyeliner> (specifically, a 
neutral-coloured circle 🞅 for an unmodified buffer and a red 
circle with dot 🞊 for a modified buffer). I Haven't given any 
thought to any of the other indicators, though.

BTW, as a side note: I wouldn't mind if all the other indicators 
of the "U:---" part of the mode line would be zero for their 
default values; i.e,. don't display ":" unless the line endings 
are not unix-style LF, don't display the first "-", just display 
something for read-only buffers, etc.

Anyway, it was just a quick remark, I didn't give it much thought. 
If there's some interest, I wouldn't mind putting some ideas 
together, though.

--
Joost Kremers, PhD
Wuppertal University
Germanic Linguistics
Gaußstraße 20
42119 Wuppertal, Germany
+49 (0)202-439 3036