Re: character display

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 06.06.2005 um 09:24 schrieb Jörg Hagmann:

> I am using Emacs with Mac OS X 10.3 (The window kind, probably version 
> 21.3) and a US keyboard.

What does that mean? Is it the X11 client GNU Emacs or is it a 
so-called Carbon Emacs that looks like another Apple tool?

> Sometimes I need French or German characters (aigu, grave, umlaut 
> etc.). I managed to type these by C-x C-m C-\ latin-1-prefix. But how 
> can they be displayed? All I see is empty boxes. Innumerable 
> combinations of what I found under "Options" didn't help.
> Are the fonts missing in my installation?

Yes and no.

If you're using the X11 version you are in the lucky position of being 
at least able to display all sorts of glyphs -- provided you have the 
fonts! The Carbon Emacsen are quite bad as they are restricted to the 
use of 'natic' Mac-what-so-ever encodings, for example Mac-Roman. All 
you need to do is to set up a fontset for that.

There is a list for GNU Emacs users on Mac OS X:

List Post: <mailto:macosx-emacs@email.esm.psu.edu>
List Archives: <http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/MacOSX-Emacs-Digests/>

In the digests you can find a few pointers from where to get more 
customized Carbon Emacsen (Aquamacs, YACED [Yet Another Carbon Emacs 
Distribution], and a Japanese version that is promoted by Apple on 
their downloads site). If you're working with X11 I can send you 
privately an Elisp file with fontsets and I think pointers too from 
where to get the fonts.

In Carbon Emacs you have the choice to swab Alt and Cmd, so that 
pressing the Alt (option) key you have one and together with Shift 
another layer of glyphs with accents etc.

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

  Pete

"A mathematician is a machine that turns coffee into theorems."