Re: bad UI defaults

[Dave Love]

address@hidden (Gerd Moellmann) writes:

> For me, a visual indication which window is the active one is
> generally helpful only when I'm not in Emacs.  99% of the time, with
> C-x 2, C-x o, and all the other commands, I know up front where the
> active cursor will be, at least approximately, and especially in the
> approximately case, a light show somewhere else is majorly annoying :).

Yes, and flashing is obviously most distracting.

> It's not obvious to me that this new blinking style is clearly
> superior to the usual style or that a majority of users has demanded
> this change (which would be suprising for me in the first place
> because Emacs is the only application I've ever encountered offering
> such a blinking style.)

Indeed.

> To the contrary, as Dave and myself have
> mentioned in the past, the new style has a drawback---it makes the
> character under the cursor less readable.

Sorry, I don't remember it coming up before.  I definitely don't
understand how others don't see the same problem, at least with the
same font.  I'm not usually far from the norm such cognitive effects,
and I'm glad to know I'm not actually alone in this case!

> There's of course nothing to be said against offering this new
> blinking style as on option, but I can't imagine a reason for making
> it the default.
>
>>  * The smaller (one-pixel?) width of the outlines of boxes and arrows
>>    in the menus means they pretty well fade away on my 1280×1024
>>    display. 
>
> Same for me, same resolution, wearing glasses.

I also have glasses (or contact lenses) with medium strong myopia.
Perhaps that makes a difference, though I'd be surprised.  If so, I
guess it would affect a lot of people.  

> If I'm not looking
> very carefully, I don't see the arrows in the menu at all.  I gather
> this is to make Emacs integrate better with some Gnome style, but I
> can't say I like it :).

If people want that, they can use the gtk version, surely?  But the
items I see in gtk applications -- sawfish, for instance -- are
actually bolder, and the menus in gtk Emacs are completely different.
(Gtk 1 v. gtk 2?)