Re: [h-e-w] Emacs 21 and MS Windows

[Andrew Innes]

On Mon, 8 Oct 2001 10:29:57 +0200, Frank Schmitt <address@hidden> said:

> Hello,
> 
> I'm just wondering what the latest news about Emacs 21 on MS Windows
> are. At release time it will not be possible to ave inline images
> support on MS Windows, is this right? Is someone working on it?

The 21.1 release should be quite soon now.  The source tree has just
been branched for 21.1, and people are now putting in the trunk all the
patches they've been saving up for after 21.1.  I expect the official
release of 21.1 to happen within a week or two (though it is not my
decision when it happens).

Neither Jason (to my knowledge) nor I are working on image support (or
much else) at the moment.  Over the last few months, several people have
offered to help with various areas (I don't remember who at the moment,
or what areas they are interested in), but I see no reason to turn down
new offers of help even if there may be overlap in interest.  It will be
a big job, and it will definitely help to have several developers who
can work and debug these things together.

Before any major changes are made, it will be necessary for someone to
first sync up the Windows redisplay code with all the bug fixes and
changes made to the X code over the last 6 months or so.  Depending on
how my workload goes, I may be able to help do some of this - Jason
might be able to help too, I don't know.

However, the first step for anyone wanting to get involved in
development will be to become familiar with the code, which is something
that can be started now using the current pretest.  By all means,
experiment with trying to implement (part of the) image support, as a
means to help understand the code.  Some details may change as we sync
up with the X code, but I think the effort won't be wasted.

Be warned that the internals of Emacs can appear daunting when you start
to dig into them, particularly the redisplay code which is very
featureful and complex.  It is important to have a good grasp of the
lisp-level display facilities that are supported (overlays, text
properties, faces, fontsets etc) before trying to understand the C code.
So you may want to start by reading the Emacs and Elisp manuals to
understand, or at least be aware of, the feature set that is supported.

BTW, new Emacs and Elisp manuals will be released when 21.1 comes out.

AndrewI