Re: [AUCTeX-devel] bugs in LaTeX-includegraphics-extensions; incompatibility with old emacsens

[Ikumi Keita]

Hi Mosè and all,

>>>>> Mosè Giordano <address@hidden> writes:
> Hi all,
> 2017-09-15 8:25 GMT+02:00 Ikumi Keita <address@hidden>:
>>> My vote would be to keep it as it: Emacs 22.3. was released 2008.  I
>>> think it is time to ask users to update Emacs or use an older AUCTeX
>>> release (11.88 or older).  This would apply for XEmacs users as well.
>> 
>> I see.  What do others think?

> If I remember well, some time ago we reached a consensus on dropping
> support for Emacs versions prior to 24 after AUCTeX 11.90.

If my memory serves, no explicit decision was made at that time althogh
opinion supporting to drop support for older emacsen was by far dominant.
Anyway, I'm also in favor for that direction.

> Now we are on 11.91 --- which was a necessary bugfix release --- IMHO
> it's time to move on.

Isn't is good to mention that Emacs versions prior to 24 are no longer
supported in the documents of oficial release?  The followings are
quotes from files in the tarball of 11.91.  The descriptions are almost
the same as older releases:

-- INSTALL --------------------------------------------------
   * A recent version of Emacs, alternatively XEmacs

     Emacs 20 is no longer supported, and neither is XEmacs with a
     version of 'xemacs-base' older than 1.84 (released in sumo from
     02/02/2004).  Using preview-latex requires a version of Emacs
     compiled with image support.  While the X11 version of Emacs 21
     will likely work, Emacs 22 and later is preferred.

     Windows
          Precompiled versions are available from
          <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/>.
     Mac OS X
          For an overview of precompiled versions of Emacs for Mac OS X
          see for example
          <http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/EmacsForMacOS>.
     GNU/Linux
          Most GNU/Linux distributions nowadays provide a recent variant
          of Emacs via their package repositories.
     Self-compiled
          Compiling Emacs yourself requires a C compiler and a number of
          tools and development libraries.  Details are beyond the scope
          of this manual.  Instructions for checking out the source code
          can be found at <https://savannah.gnu.org/bzr/?group=emacs>.

     If you really need to use Emacs 21 on platforms where this implies
     missing image support, you should disable the installation of
     preview-latex (see below).

     While XEmacs (version 21.4.15, 21.4.17 or later) is supported,
     doing this in a satisfactory manner has proven to be difficult.
     This is mostly due to technical shortcomings and differing API's
     which are hard to come by.  If AUCTeX is your main application for
     XEmacs, you are likely to get better results and support by
     switching to Emacs.  Of course, you can improve support for your
     favorite editor by giving feedback in case you encounter bugs.

-- FAQ --------------------------------------------------
  2. What versions of Emacs and XEmacs are supported?

     AUCTeX was tested with Emacs 21 and XEmacs 21.4.15.  Older versions
     may work but are unsupported.  Older versions of XEmacs might
     possibly made to work by updating the 'xemacs-base' package through
     the XEmacs package system.  If you are looking for a
     recommendation, it would appear that the smoothest working platform
     on all operating systems at the current point of time would be
     Emacs 22 or higher.

2.1 Which version of (X)Emacs is needed?
========================================

See also the table at the end of the section.

   preview-latex nominally requires GNU Emacs with a version of at least
21.1.  However, Emacs 22 (currently under development) offers superior
performance and wider platform support, and is even now the recommended
platform to use.

   While recent versions of XEmacs 21.4 are supported, doing this in a
satisfactory manner has proven to be difficult due to technical
shortcomings and differing API's which are hard to come by.  If
preview-latex is an important part of your editing workflow, you are
likely to get better results and support by switching to Emacs.  Of
course, you can improve support for your favorite editor by giving
feedback in case you encounter bugs.

2.4 For which OS does preview work?
===================================

It is known to work under the X Window System for Linux and for several
flavors of Unix: we have reports for HP and Solaris.

   There are several development versions of Emacs around for native
MacOS Carbon, and preview-latex is working with them, too.

   With Windows, Cygwin and native ports of XEmacs should work.
preview-latex will not work with any native version 21 of Emacs under
Windows: you need to get a hold of Emacs 22 which is at the time of this
writing not released but available as a developer snapshot.

   The entry "X11/Unix" currently means Linux, Solaris or HP/UX, as well
as the X-specific version for Mac/OSX.

OS             Emacs version   XEmacs version
X11/Unix       21.1            21.4.9
Win9x cygwin   21.3.50?        21.4.8
Win9x native   22.1            21.4.8
MacOSX         22.1            -
native

Regards,
Ikumi Keita