[AUCTeX-devel] Re: Fontifying of titles...

[Reiner Steib]

On Sat, Apr 09 2005, Ralf Angeli wrote:

> * Reiner Steib (2005-04-08) writes:

[ filling ]
> David explained this point quite good.  I am thinking as well that the
> effect of smaller fill columns for headings is a minor issue.

See my followup to David.

> I could imagine that we will rather get complaints that users who
> dislike the 'height fontification now have to change eight faces
> instead of four,

They wouldn't have to.  We should rather consider
`font-latex-title-N-face' (N < MAX) as internal faces not intended to
be customized by the user.  Customizing `font-latex-title-fontify'
and/or `font-latex-title-MAX-face' should be sufficient for the vast
majority.

I only remember people who mentioned that they customized title-1 ...
title-4 to the same font.  I think we agree that these users should
use `font-latex-title-fontify'.  Our fault might be insufficient
documentation (missing references, see below).

> i.e. it will make matters worse with people who don't read the
> documentation.

At least if they use `customize-face' (or `describe-face') they could
see the doc string:

,----[ M-x customize-face RET font-latex-title-3-face RET ]
| font-latex-title-3-face:(sample) Hide Face
|    State: STANDARD.
| Face for LaTeX titles at level 3. Hide Rest
| 
| Probably you don't want to customize this face directly.  Better
| change the face `font-latex-title-7-face' or customize the
| variable `font-latex-title-fontify'.
`----

I think we should add the references to `font-latex-title-MAX-face'
and `font-latex-title-fontify' no matter if we keep four faces or not.

The mapping of eight LaTeX sectioning level to four fonts (based on
`Info-title-N-face') is quite arbitrary:

1 - \part \chapter
2 - \section
3 - \subsection
4 - \subsubsection \paragraph \subparagraph \subsubparagraph

Why *should* \part and \chapter or all the title-4 sections be
displayed with the same face in the first place?  Given your previous
concerns about \section and \subsection being indistinguishable, I
don't quite understand that you don't want to have more than four
faces.

> And if you only have a limited amount of font sizes available this
> will not improve the situation because it does not change the
> limiting factor.

But it won't make it worse neither.

> So I'd prefer to stay with the current set of faces/levels and simply
> decrease the scale factor a bit.

Both of my patches are intended to increase the acceptance of AUCTeX's
defaults for the broad audience.  Personally I can live with the
current code as well as with both of my suggestions.  But I think that
the second patch (maybe supplemented with linear scaling as suggested
below) would give best results for the broad audience.

What makes it hard for us (at least for me) is that (all?) user
complaints about the title faces were very unspecific making it hard
to guess *what* we need to improve to make it more appealing.  A poll
as David suggested might help us.

> What we could try as well is to scale linearly (considering the dpi
> value of the display device if possible)

Isn't "not considering the dpi value" a bug in Emacs rather than
AUCTeX?

> instead of exponentially.  Maybe this will give better results.

ACK, linear scaling might be worth a try.  (The scaling of
`Info-title-N-face' is quite appropriate for info, but necessarily for
AUCTeX.)

[ `font-latex-title-fontify' ]
>>>> +If it is a number, use varying height faces scaled with this number.
>>>> +Setting this variable does not take effect unless you call
>>>> +\\[font-lock-fontify-buffer]."
>>
>> BTW, calling `font-lock-fontify-buffer' (and
>> `font-latex-make-title-faces') is not sufficient to change the
>> scaling.
>
> You mean with your patch applied, right?

Yes, with both of my patches.  Evaluating defface doesn't change
already defined faces.  (The current code doesn't give any hint that
changing this variable doesn't take immediate effect.)

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
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