Re: How to make Emacs popular again: Use monospaced fonts less

[Eli Zaretskii]

On October 11, 2020 8:37:45 AM GMT+03:00, Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> 
wrote:
> One of the reasons Emacs looks kinda old-fashioned is that we use
> monospaced fonts all over the place.  Now, when programming and stuff,
> a
> monospaced font is preferred, but in other contexts, it looks pretty
> old-fashioned.
> 
> So here's my most controversial suggestion ever:
> 
> diff --git a/lisp/faces.el b/lisp/faces.el
> index 5b7e0a5aee..e6f65a5901 100644
> --- a/lisp/faces.el
> +++ b/lisp/faces.el
> @@ -2553,6 +2553,7 @@ mode-line-faces
>  (defface mode-line
>    '((((class color) (min-colors 88))
>       :box (:line-width -1 :style released-button)
> +     :inherit variable-pitch
>       :background "grey75" :foreground "black")
>      (t
>       :inverse-video t))
> 
> In addition to looking nicer, it means we can fit more data into the
> mode line.
> 
> Other obvious candidates for variable-pitching are basically any mode
> that displays data in tabular form.  And, of course, the manuals, but
> that'll happen by itself once we move from .info to .html.

We cannot just switch to variable-pitch font and leave the rest unchanged.  
Using a variable-pitch font will cause an annoying horizontal movement of the 
mode-line stuff when some parts change.  For example, moving in the buffer will 
change the column and line numbers, and everything to the right of that will as 
result shift slightly in the horizontal direction.

So to use variable pitch fonts here (and in any other tabjlar display), we'd 
need to use 'align-to' display properties to keep the other parts from moving.