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

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> OK, here's another random idea for padding variable-pitch elements in
>> the mode lines in particular:
>> 
>>         (setq mode-line-thing
>>               `(:propertize
>>                 "some-string"
>>                 :min-width 15))
>> 
>> which could have well-defined semantics, like "this element should have
>> the width of at least 15 typical characters", and be pretty easy to use?
>
> This stuff is basically unworkable without having a window in whose
> context the string will be shown.  That's because we need metrics of
> each character glyph, and that presumes fonts, and that presumes faces
> and other stuff.
>
> This is why we use 'display' property: when the text is displayed, we
> have this data by definition.  But not when we just have a string.

I'm not sure I understand you.  The mode line elements are only used
when we display them, so we know all that stuff, and can apply some
padding after the element if we have a :min-width thing here.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no