Re: "Why is emacs so square?"

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Tim Cross <address@hidden>
> Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2020 23:57:18 +1000
> Cc: Bob Newell <address@hidden>, Emacs developers <address@hidden>
> 
> I think the challenge would be in coming up with an approach which won't make 
> the terminal (non-gui)
> version drift from the GUI version too much. Changing the button styles etc 
> in the GUI menu and perhaps
> updating toolbar icons etc is probably not too hard, but you cannot do much 
> with things like 'buttons' in
> widgets etc (such as those used with customize) without having to have 
> completely different code for
> rendering in GUI and rendering in terminal.

Maybe I'm missing something, but AFAIK we already have different code
for rendering this stuff in GUI and in text-mode frames. The GUI code
inserts an image and simulates the 3D "raised button" appearance,
whereas the text-mode code shows some ASCII art instead.

Or maybe I don't understand what differences you had in mind.

> I think part of the reason the GUI menus and toolbar might look dated to many 
> is that nearly all experienced
> and long-term users I know turn off the menus and toolbar, so never see them.

Well, I don't, FWIW.

> For me, the only 'buttons' I see are the widget style buttons and these are 
> not really buttons -
> they are really text 'fake' buttons.

Not sure what you mean by "text fake buttons".  We show a 3D
appearance on button widgets; if that's not real buttons, then what
should real buttons look like, in your opinion?